


A Year of Sunsets

by katrinawritesthings



Series: Sunset Au [1]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Brotp, Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, NB, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-03-29 03:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13918566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: listen…. au where taem moves to the forest and paints sunsets every day and jong is his neighbor and also there are wolf shapeshiftersThere’s silence for a moment as Jonghyun expects him to say something and Taemin doesn’t have anything to say; then Jonghyun’s lips twitch up and he leans over to open up the box he brought over. “I got you some stuff, like, welcoming presents,” he says.tumblr





	1. Chapter 1

Taemin is so in love.

He’s so in love with his new life. His new house, his new empty garden, his new lack of close neighbors. This is what he’s been all about for years. A cute little log cabin in the woods. It’s got a sweet porch that he’s gonna hang some strawberry plants from, a nice big fireplace, a backyard that fades out right into a path into the trees… he stands out front, right where Kibum’s car and the moving van were not five minutes ago, and just looks at his new place with the happiest sigh he’s ever sighed. This is perfect.

The hot June sun is just about getting ready to start setting behind the trees and if Taemin leans a little bit to the left, he can see a thin trail of smoke a little bit away. That’s his closest neighbor, about a twenty minute stroll down the little dirt road through the forest. There are other houses in these woods, but most are unoccupied. Most people live in the little town near the woods, but not actually in them, and even then, it’s not very many. It’s kind of why Taemin got his house so cheap, to be honest; legal shapeshifter forests aren’t exactly prime real estate location.

Taemin doesn’t mind at all; he knows full well that shapeshifter communities that live on actual reserves keep to themselves. It’s not like they’re vicious human eaters that just want to maul him in his new bed–and even if they were, there are laws to protect humans from them, just as there are laws to protect them from humans. He expects people that spend the grand majority of their time as their animal forms want even less to do with paperwork than full-time human people do. They’re probably just deeper in the forest, doing their wolfy things, hunting deer, snuggling their pups, not wanting to be human or around humans, the usual. He can relate, kind of.

Taemin’s never really been the social type. He’ll just go to the town for groceries, and take longer drives to the city to visit his friends if he’s feeling lonely, and that will be perfect. He’ll also have to talk to his new neighbor eventually, he guesses, but it’s not like he’s dreading it or anything. He’s sure that they’ll be friendly enough, and if they’re not, they’re a mile away anyway. It won’t be hard to avoid them. If they haven’t come by to welcome him to the foresthood in a week, he’ll go over there and introduce himself just to be polite.

For now, he wraps his arms around himself, hugging himself, because he’s just  _so fucking happy_  to have finally achieved his dream. And he’s barely over thirty. He’s got his dream house, his dream location, his dream job…. and speaking of which, he should get started, before the sun goes down.

With one last happy sigh for now, he slips inside of his new home. Passing all of the unopened boxes and lazily arranged furniture, he grabs his easel–the very first thing he unpacked–under his arm. He picks up his box of painting stuff and a pillow as well, and with those under his other arm, he heads straight back outside. He thinks, for his first time, his first painting on his first day here, he wants to paint the view right from the road in front of his house.

He finds that big, flat boulder on the other side of the road he was eyeing up earlier, sets up his easel and canvas in front of it, throws the pillow onto it, sits down, gets all of his colors ready next to him, and paints the sun just peeking out from behind the corner of a beautiful log cabin, tall trees casting shadows against the land, and a little, swirling line of grey in the distance.

~

When Taemin finishes setting up his little collection of grass Pokémon plushies and one pink glass tentacle dildo on the mantle is when he figures that he should probably go introduce himself to his new neighbor. It’s been five days; he doesn’t really know the etiquette of greeting new neighbors, but he thinks they should at least know each other by now. A few hours remain until it’ll be time to paint the day’s sunset. If he’s asked to stay for a meal or something, it won’t be long enough for him to get too tired out. He turns to face the rest of his living room, stopping for a moment to hold himself again and sigh happily. It’s lovely. Lovely and cozy and warm and perfect.

He practically bounces to his couch, fixes up the blanket thrown over it, and glances into the mirror he hung up above it yesterday. Hmm. His black hair is a little mussed. He runs his fingers through it to make it look “casually” messy instead of “I just spent the last three hours rearranging my living room” messy. It totally works. Passing through the kitchen to leave the house, he pauses to frown at the chips and poptarts he has on his counters. Should he bring something? To be polite? None of this is even good stuff to bring over to someone’s house. And he’s the new one here; he shouldn’t be expected to bring the gifts, right? Ugh. This is why he doesn’t like social shit.

Fuck it, he decides, he’ll just tell them that he was _going_  to bring something but hasn’t gotten settled enough to get any real cooking done. It’s not like it’s not true. He runs his fingers through his hair one more time as he grabs the handle of his front door, and then there’s a knock on his back door.

He turns, confused. Who the fuck is knocking at his back door? Or, well–it can probably only be one person, so–why are they there instead of here in front? He heads back there instead with another glance at himself in the mirror. When he pulls open the door, he’s confident that his hair is pretty okay for a dude that just spent the last three hours rearranging his living room.

Also, when he pulls open the door, he finds someone with tan skin, dark hair, deep brown eyes, and a charming smile.

“Hi,” they say cheerily. They’re holding a box in both hands, so they just lift a few fingers in a wave at Taemin instead of offering their hand to shake or something. Well, good. Taemin gets paranoid about what people think of his handshakes and he always winds up gripping too hard to meet the crushing expectations of masculinity placed upon him by the patriarchy. “I’m Jonghyun,” his neighbor says, “your friendly neighborhood… neighbor.” They pause for a moment with a little frown at their box; Taemin feels like they don’t rehearse things nearly as much as he does. “Friendly neighborhood resident,” they say, looking back up. “Or, person. Empty genderless void. Whatever. He pronouns, though. I’m friendly. That’s the point.” He shrugs with a little smile; Taemin finds himself baffled yet also pleasantly informed. “Sorry if coming to your back door was weird,” Jonghyun goes on, “it’s just, way faster to cut through the woods than go around the actual path.”

“Oh, uh,” Taemin says, realizing that he should probably reply to something that Jonghyun is saying. “No, it’s cool,” he grins. Already he’s learning great tips for living in this area. He was legitimately about to walk the whole twenty minute long way. Maybe he’ll stop exploring the forest in front of his place on his daily searches for good sunset viewing spots and start working on the trees between his house and Jonghyun’s. He notices Jonghyun readjust the box in his arms and curses internally. He’s being rude. “Uh, come in, please,” he says, stepping back and holding the door open wider. “I was just about to go visit you myself, actually,” he admits.

“Ahh, yeah, sorry about that too.” Jonghyun laughs a little sheepishly as he steps inside. He sets his box down on Taemin’s coffee table and turns back to him quickly. “I meant to come greet you before, but I thought you weren’t gonna be here until next week, and then I had to go to the store to get some stuff, and then I didn’t know how early was too early, and then I didn’t want to interrupt your lunch, and I tried coming around after dinnertime yesterday but you weren’t here, and… well, yeah.” This Jonghyun sure does talk a lot, Taemin notes. It’s kind of endearing, how he lets his words get carried by his excitement. It cleared up all of Taemin’s questions about why he hadn’t come to visit yet, at least.

“After dinner isn’t a good time for me, no,” he hums, picking one things Jonghyun’s said to reply to. “That’s when I go out to paint the sunset. Um, see?” He gestures at the first painting he did out here not a week ago at it’s new home above his fireplace. Then he gestures at the empty canvas and box of paints on the kitchen table, waiting for tonight’s adventure. His other paintings from the last few nights are in the mess of boxes and packing peanuts that he’s going to clean up into his art room soon. “It’s kind of my job,” he grins, turning back to Jonghyun. “One sunset a day. They’re really simple, but really fun, and every time they’re different, and I pretend like they take me like, three times as long to paint as they really do so I can charge more.” He shrugs unashamedly. He’s gotta eat.

“Sounds nice,” Jonghyun says. “You’re very talented.”

“Thanks,” Taemin smiles, proud. He does work hard. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks suddenly, remembering that Jonghyun is a guest in his house. “You can sit, too, I gue–yeah. Feel free.” He smiles politely to cover up how bad he is at talking. Jonghyun smiles back, looking vaguely sympathetic to Taemin’s efforts, as he sits. As long as he doesn’t point it out.

“Water, please,” he says, and Taemin nods. Water. He can do that. He slips into his kitchen and fills up a glass. Halfway through, he realizes that he hasn’t even told Jonghyun his name yet. Fuck. What a great first impression he’s making here. When he brings Jonghyun’s water back out, Jonghyun is looking over one of his little business cards on the table with a curious smile. Taemin hopes he’s enjoying the “Corporate Banana, He who Banans” label in the bottom corner. He had to pay an extra two dollars for that. Jonghyun looks up when Taemin offers him his water and takes it with another polite smile. “Taemin, right?” he asks, “he pronouns?” and frick.

“Yeah, sorry,” Taemin says. He can’t believe Jonghyun had to get his info off of a shitty business card first. “I’m not good at the whole… talking to people thing.”

“That’s okay,” Jonghyun says, waving off his concerns as he takes a sip of their water. “Sometimes I’m not either. I kind of shift. Between being a social butterfly and kind of a lone wolf, you know?” Taemin doesn’t really know, being always on the lone wolf end of that spectrum himself, but he nods anyway. There’s silence for a moment as Jonghyun expects him to say something and Taemin doesn’t have anything to say; then Jonghyun’s lips twitch up and he leans over to open up the box he brought over. “I got you some stuff, like, welcoming presents,” he says. Taemin breathes a sigh of relief. Thank fuck Jonghyun knows how to save a conversation. He sits down next to Jonghyun, peeping into the box curiously as he pulls stuff out.

“It’s just, you know, some things that you might not know you need, to be living out here,” Jonghyun tells him. “Like… mosquito bracelets.” He pulls out a little packet of coiled rubber bracelets that Taemin takes curiously. There’s five in there, all different cute colors. “They smell a little weird, but I kind of like it, to be honest. You don’t even have to wear them in the house. Just hang one on your headboard, you know, and over the table or whatever, and they’ll do their jobs.” He shrugs; Taemin mirrors him for lack of a better reply and stuffs the packet into his pocket. “I also got you some fire crystals,” Jonghyun says, pulling out a new little packet with much more enthusiasm. “If you throw them into the fire they change it’s color and it’s really cool.”

“Ooh,” Taemin says, grabbing the bag and flipping it to read the back. He’s always wanted to try these. Jonghyun smiles at his excitement and pulls more stuff out of the box.

“A double flashlight, so you don’t trip over yourself outside… batteries, because the power goes out here quite a bit in winter… swiss army knife, because, well, you know… a fancy water filter bottle in case you run out of water on a hike or something so you can drink from the lake or the river… a compass, the town is south east, deeper into the woods is north west… oh–” He reaches to the very bottom of the box and pulls out his final items: graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate. “S’mores,” he says brightly. “Very essential.”

 _“True,”_  Taemin says, making grabby hands greedily. He was gonna get some of these the next time he went shopping, eager to make some with the first fire he sets up in his cool new fireplace as soon as it got cold enough to justify a fire. He looks at everything else laid out on the table as well, just little things to help him adjust. This is all so sweet. “Um, thank you, really,” he says, not entirely sure how to express his feelings. When Jonghyun looks at him though, a gentle ease in his deep eyes and toothy smile, Taemin feels reassured that his small words of thanks were good enough.

“No problem,” Jonghyun says. “I was gonna make you cookies or something, but I’m not that great at baking.”

“I am,” Taemin grins. He’s great at fruit pies and berry muffins and putting obscene amounts of strawberries between layer cakes. “I can bring something over next week, if you want,” he offers. It’ll make up for how awkward and unprepared he is for their first meeting now.

“Uh, actually,” Jonghyun says, “I’m not gonna be here next week.” He takes a sheepish sip of his water as he leans back into the corner of Taemin’s couch. “I’m gonna leave soon, I think for a month or two. Vacation.” He wiggles his eyebrows at Taemin over his glass. Taemin raises his own.

“Hmm?” he asks. Living out here is practically a permanent vacation for him, to be honest. “To the city?” Sounds awful.

“No, no, just deeper into the woods,” Jonghyun says. He waves a hand towards what Taemin thinks is the lake. “Northwest. Connect with my inner nature, you know? Hunt and shit. I’ve been really itching to go out there for a week or so, but,” he shrugs at Taemin and gestures around his living room, “I wanted to make sure I welcomed you to the forest before I left.”

“Oh. Aw. I mean–or–” Taemin runs his fingers through his hair with a grimace. That’s not an “aw” thing. It’s more of a… he doesn’t know. Helpful? Considerate? Just–”Thanks, again,” he says. “You didn’t have to postpone it for me.” Taemin is sure that he could’ve managed on his own for a lil bit without Jonghyun, but it’s touching that he chose to stay.

“Don’t worry about it, I never really plan it anyway,” Jonghyun says. “Usually I kind of just… go. For a few days, or I think the longest was five months, maybe?” He frowns up at Taemin’s ceiling in thought before shrugging again. “I don’t know. Until I feel like coming back again.”

“Like shifting back into a social butterfly, you mean?” Taemin grins, gathering up all of the stuff Jonghyun brought over and putting it back in the box absentmindedly. He’ll unpack it again with everything else that he has left. He glances up in time to see a little smirk pulling up the corners of Jonghyun’s lips.

“Something like that, yeah,” he agrees. Taemin’s smile grows with a tiny bit of pride. He totally nailed that sly little joke. He understands. It’s like how he himself is only going to go to the city every once in a while if he feels lonely, except apparently Jonghyun goes from mild isolation to like… _super_  isolation. He bets there are some pretty cool sunset spots out there in the woods. Maybe he’ll ask Jonghyun to give him a map or something when he comes back. They fall into silence a second time; it’s less awkward than before, but Taemin still finds himself pulling Jonghyun’s box into his lap and drawing little circles with his fingers on the sides. It’s around three in the afternoon; too late for lunch but definitely too early for dinner. There’s not really a reason to ask Jonghyun to stay, but there isn’t one to ask him to leave either. Taemin has no idea what he’s supposed to do.

Luckily, after another few moments of silence, Jonghyun decides for him.

“Welp,” he says, standing up and downing the rest of the water. “I’ll let you finish getting settled in.” He smiles at Taemin and holds out his glass. “Thanks, and welcome to the forest. You can always come visit me if you want, if I’m in.”

“Oh–yes, okay, thank you,” Taemin says. He stands up as well, taking his glass back. “Um–have fun on your vacation.” When he gets back, Taemin will bake him a little something something, as a proper thank you present. That’ll make them even. Jonghyun nods with friendly little smile, then heads out of Taemin’s back door, waving over his shoulder.

A few hours later, when Taemin wanders through the trees between their houses to find a good sunset spot, he notices that for the first time all week, there isn’t a little trail of smoke rising from Jonghyun’s chimney. He’s already gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days into October, after Taemin has made both himself and Jonghyun pumpkin pies and had way too much fun setting up Halloween decorations for no one but himself, Jonghyun catches Taemin sitting on the shore of the lake, letting pebbly sand fall through his fingers as he waits for the sun to get low enough for some nicer colors.  
> [tumblr](http://katrinawritesthings.tumblr.com/post/171934914281/jonghyuntaemin-a-year-of-sunsets-part-25-pg)

As Taemin carries sunset number twenty-one back through the darkening trees to home, it really hits him how glad he is that he chose to go into acrylic painting instead of watercolor. Sure, watercolors are swirlier and funner, but they take long as fuck to dry. He can’t even imagine how much more tedious this would be if he had to deal with that nonsense. He’s still going to have to figure out an easier way to carry these canvasses back home, though, instead of just awkwardly holding them under his arm. Maybe he’ll look something up online so he can carry them on his back as well.

He’s so caught up in trying to figure out how to make these walks back easier on him that he’s halfway passed the warm orange glow shining through Jonghyun’s windows before he realizes that there’s a warm orange glow shining through Jonghyun’s windows. He stops, curious; looking up, he sees the smoke coming from his chimney and recognizes the smell. Oh. He's back already? It hasn’t even been three weeks. He stares at the windows, lost in thought. If Jonghyun is back already, that means he’ll have to get started on his banana nut muffins soon. He’d thought a lot about it over the past few days and he’d come to the pretty solid conclusion that Jonghyun is a muffin person, and also a banana nut person. Unless he’s allergic, which he should probably find out. Hmm.

Again, he gets so lost in thought that he doesn’t realize he’s just standing outside of Jonghyun’s house and staring into his kitchen window until Jonghyun walks by and notices him. This time is significantly more embarrassing than the first. He blushes as Jonghyun flashes him a smile though the window, but scoots forward when Jonghyun waves at him to come closer.

“Hey,” he says when Taemin gets close enough to lean up against the windowsill. “Back from painting?”

“Uh, yeah,” Taemin says. “I’ve been scoping out the lake, see?” He holds up his painting proudly so Jonghyun can see the contrast of the fiery orange sky over the shadowy aqua of the water. People are totally gonna want to buy this one for sure. “But, um--” He shakes his head quickly before he forgets what he was going to ask. “What about you? I thought you were going to be out there for a month or two.” That’s what he said, right? A month, maybe two? Seeing him back here so soon, Taemin is starting to doubt his own memory.

“Ahh, well, yeah,” Jonghyun says, He shrugs a little sheepishly and lifts his hand to run his fingers through his hair. It’s a gesture that makes Taemin realise that he’s shirtless, and kind of fucking ripped. That’s pretty cool, he guesses. He was planning on his only exercise being his daily walks to the sunset, but good for Jonghyun if he wants to be in like, super shape. “You know how it rained pretty hard a few days last week?” Jonghyun asks. “And then got really hot?”

“Yeah,” Taemin snorts, shaking his head. The rain he liked; he cozied up on the couch, painted it through his window, read some old comic books, watched some tacky judge shows, made some s’mores, listened to it patter against the ceiling, and loved his life. The heat he could have done without, though. It’s still kind of lingering around and he’s really glad that it’s getting closer to winter than summer. He’s not fond of being sticky and gross.

“Yeah, well, it got really humid out there,” Jonghyun goes on. “I hate when it’s humid. I think I’m gonna leave again when the summer storms are over and the winter ones haven’t started yet. When it’s cold and dry and  _not humid_. October, maybe.”

“Mmm… spooky,” Taemin hums, grinning when Jonghyun grins at his comment. It’s pretty impressive, how Jonghyun knows the forest’s weather patterns so well. Taemin doesn’t even have the weather of his old home memorized, and he lived there for over ten years. Jonghyun’s knowledge of his home makes him remember something important: that he doesn’t really know jack shit about this place. “Hey,” he says, “I meant to ask you something else too.” He puts his hand on Jonghyun’s windowsill, ready to ask. Then he frowns because he forgot. “Uh, fuck.” It was actually two things, he thinks, looking down. One thing about the lake, maybe, and something else about…? Guh.

“Do you wanna come in for dinner?” Jonghyun asks. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder into the house. “I just threw some dinosaur nuggets into the oven a few minutes ago.”

“Fancy,” Taemin says. He glances through the trees at his house for a moment; if he’s being honest, he doesn’t really feel like making his own food tonight. He was gonna do the same as Jonghyun, except with regular shaped chicken nuggets instead. He thinks Jonghyun’s version sounds much nicer. And he feels like he can deal with a little socializing right now. He nods when Jonghyun points him towards the front door, hiking his sunset more under his arm and heading over there. When Jonghyun lets him in, he just smiles with another nod, kind of spacing out while he tries to remember what it was that he wanted to ask about the lake. It’s not until he’s setting his bag and painting gently against the kitchen counter next to the door that he remembers; the painting itself reminds him.

“Oh,” he says, looking up slowly. Jonghyun is over by his couch, wiggling rather ungracefully into a purple sweater. Taemin waits until his head pops out from the collar, mussed and curious, and then points at his artwork. “Those rocks, in the lake,” he says, waiting for Jonghyun to come squint at the rocks in his painting. “Is there any way to like… get on top of them?” He nods when Jonghyun moves to pick the canvas up, giving him permission. “I want to do a sunset from the center of the lake.” He tried looking for little stepping stones, fallen logs, anything that would make a good path, but he couldn’t see anything from his vantage point on the shore.

“Hmm,” Jonghyun hums, lifting his canvas up onto his counter and leaning it against his coffee maker. “Yes, but… there won’t be for a while, not after the rain we just had.” He shrugs sympathetically as Taemin pouts. Frick. He must have just missed it. “Usually, in the summer,” Jonghyun says, “the lake is low enough that you can make your way into the middle on some other boulders. It’s not that deep here on the south side.” He points a little path from the shore Taemin painted to the rocks in the center. Taemin hums again, not pleased but at least satisfied with Jonghyun’s answer. He’ll go out there next year or something. As for now, he frowns at Jonghyun, noticing a roughness in his voice that wasn’t there last time now that he’s spent a few minutes talking to him.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asks. “You’re not sick, are you?” Taemin doesn’t want to catch whatever Jonghyun has, if he has anything. He doesn’t want to get sick in his very first month.

“Hmm? No, no,” Jonghyun says. He rubs a hand over his throat self-consciously. “Being out there just messes with my voice sometimes,” he shrugs. Taemin nods, understanding. It’s just a little hoarse from lack of use. Taemin wishes that happened to him; all that he gets when he doesn’t speak for a while is a bunch of flustered stuttering. He’d gladly trade a rough voice for that.

A sudden, short beeping startles him from his thoughts: a timer sitting on the other end of the counter. Jonghyun grabs it quickly, and then puts it down just as quickly after he looks at it.

“Ten minutes left,” he says. He wiggles his eyebrows promisingly. “Oh--right.” He leaves Taemin’s side to walk around the counter and into the actual kitchen. On the far wall, across from the sink, he pulls a potato out of a low cabinet. “Baked potato, also,” he says, holding it up. “You don’t mind if I microwave it, right?” he asks. Taemin snorts.

“Not at all,” he says. He doesn’t think he’s had an actual oven-baked potato in years, not when the microwave is so much faster. Jonghyun gives him a thumbs up and turns to wash the potato, then sets it all up in the microwave next to another that he must have already prepared for himself before Taemin walked by.

“Take a seat,” he says, pointing aimlessly at the rest of the room, which has two distinct places to sit. Taemin looks from the cushy couch in front of the tv in the living area to his right, where he would sit in his own house, and then to the quaint little dining table on the left wall passed the kitchen. That’s probably where Jonghyun meant.

He shuffles over there a little awkwardly, not used to being new in someone’s house. The soft shag carpet under his feet turns into scratched tile. The dark wood of the kitchen chairs match the table also for a warm aesthetic. A small scented candle (“Desert Sand,” Taemin reads blandly) sits in the middle of the table on a cute little coaster. Jonghyun’s house is nice. Inviting. Taemin finds himself smiling as he traces lines in the surface of the table with his finger. The fact that Jonghyun is just letting him be silent and think is also nice. Looking up at the ding of the microwave, Taemin finds Jonghyun reaching in with bare hands to get their baked potatoes out. He snorts as Jonghyun hisses softly and practically drops them onto their plates. Smooth. He thinks, as Jonghyun brings both plates over to the table and sets them down carefully, that he almost remembers what the second thing was that he wanted to ask him.

“Starch,” Jonghyun mumbles as he stabs their potatoes open and flaps steam away from his face. He slides back to the counter, where he picks up a cutting board that Taemin must have completely zoned out on, and brings it to their plates. “Veggies,” he says, tipping a few carrot and celery sticks onto each of their plates, and “fruit,” as he adds half of a sliced peach next to that. Taemin raises his eyebrows, amused. This is certainly a meal that he’s putting together here. Still, it’s more thought than Taemin puts into his own diet. He doesn’t think he’s actually set out to eat vegetables in years. Living on his own and making his own dietary decisions wasn’t really one of his strong points. He doesn’t even think he remembers what carrots taste like. He hopes he likes them.

“Dairy,” Jonghyun mumbles next, taking the cutting board away and returning after a minute with two glasses of milk. “And meat,” he says finally, as his oven timer goes off behind him. He slides away to get the chicken out of the oven, looking immensely proud of how he managed to time everything so perfectly as he tips three stegosaurus-shaped nuggets and three t-rex-shaped nuggets onto each of their plates. “Perfect,” He smiles at Taemin, pushing his plate across the table helpfully. Taemin smiles, grabbing the salt from next to the napkins and adding a little bit to everything.

“Aren’t we supposed to have grains, also?” he asks teasingly. He’s sure he remembers bread being on the food pyramid somewhere. He thinks Jonghyun also skipped a food group completely, though he can’t remember which one it is. Jonghyun laughs and takes the salt when he’s done with it.

“I think they moved bread into the potato category, actually,” he says. “Or, potatoes into the bread category. Something weird. Also, I forgot to buy bread when I got back this afternoon.” He shrugs, biting the head off of one of his dinosaurs. “It’s nutritious enough for me.” He winks; Taemin breathes out a soft laugh and shrugs. Same. And Jonghyun was out in the forest for two weeks. This has to be more balanced than anything he got out there. He eats a peach slice off of his plate first, always a sucker for fruit. Picking up one of his dinosaur nuggets after, though, finally makes him remember his second question.

“Meat,” he says to himself, and then, looking up at Jonghyun, “Wolves.”

Jonghyun looks at him blankly for a moment, carrot stick between his fingers. Taemin curses internally. That was just… not good. Not the right way to say that.

“Uh, wolves?” Jonghyun asks, and Taemin shakes his head quickly, stammering to clarify.

“I-I mean, shapeshifter wolves,” he says. “Like--” He pauses and takes a deep breath before he can blunder through before he has his thoughts together and embarrass himself further. Jonghyun lets him without pressing him for an explanation, which he appreciates. After a moment (and another peach slice), he takes another breath to speak. “Before I bought the house,” he says, waving a hand behind him at his place, “I looked up this forest, and how it’s legal shapeshifter land?”

“Shapeshifter property, yeah,” Jonghyun agrees, nodding. Taemin mirrors him and stabs at his baked potato with his fork.

“I was wondering, if you’ve ever seen any of them?” he asks. “Or if you know where they are?” Now that he’s remembered his question, he can’t believe that he forgot something so fascinating. He heard them howling a few nights ago and stayed up late just to listen to them sing. He figures Jonghyun, a person who has probably lived here for a good chunk of his life, has to have seen one or two around, even if they do like to keep to themselves.

“Mmm,” Jonghyun hums. “They are out there, but... they’re good at staying... hidden. From most humans.” He speaks slowly, like he’s choosing the right words. “I’ve seen them further out every now and again, but the wolves almost never show up around here.” He takes a sip of his milk and swallows a peach slice. “I think they usually stick to the northwest of the lake, kind of passed where the river curves. That’s where I usually see them.”

“Hmm,” Taemin replies thoughtfully. That’s interesting. He thinks it would be cool to see one. It’s bound to happen at least once at some point during the rest of his life. “I’ve just, never actually seen a wolf before,” he tells Jonghyun. “My neighborhood was mostly just… humans, kitties, and bunnies.” None of those are exactly rare anywhere. “I kind of just want to see a real life wolf, period,” he mumbles. Wolves are cool. He’ll be satisfied with a regular wolf if he ever sees one of those. “I just feel like a shapeshifter is less likely to, you know, eat me.” He shrugs; Jonghyun muffles a laugh into his hand for a quick moment.

“I mean, true,” he agrees. “There aren’t any  _wolf_ wolves around here, though, so don’t worry about it. Territory shit, you know. If you ever do see a wolf, it’ll definitely be a shapeshifter.” At his reassurances, Taemin nods silently. That’s comforting. And kind of impressive. He wonders if the shapeshifters often have territorial disputes the further they go into the forest, or if the whole area is just… theirs. It’s a big place; he wonders how big the pack actually is. He doesn’t exactly know much about wolves and how much they can handle, and he’s sure that shapeshifter wolves would be different from anything he could learn online anyway. Ahh, well. If it’s really bugging him later, he’ll just ask Jonghyun to see if he knows any details. For now, he pokes absentmindedly at his last peach slice with a carrot stick, trying to remember if it was carrots or celery that he always hated when he was younger.

“You lived in the city before, right? How did you paint your sunsets then?”

“Hmm?” Taemin looks up, a little dazed from getting lost in his thoughts. Jonghyun looks at him expectantly over his plate. Shit. Sunsets… in the city? Where Taemin lived. Yeah, that’s where he lived, in the city, and he painted sunsets there. Jonghyun was right. That statement was true.

“Um,” he says. “It was a lot of skyscraper silhouettes. And telephone poles. Kites, sometimes--at the park where I would go, once a month there were kite flying events.” He smiles at the memory of all of the different colors soaring around the sky. Life in the city wasn’t all bad, he supposes. Still, it was no waking up to the smell of oak and the sound of leaves rustling overhead, and Taemin is in no hurry to drive hours back just to see some kites.

Before he can get too lost in his thoughts again, Jonghyun presses him curiously, but gently, for more information, and so Taemin tells him. About the city, his schools, how dancing used to be tied with painting in his interests until he realized that dancing as a job would be much too social for him, just stuff about his life. Jonghyun talks about himself as well; how this has been his family’s house for generations but he’s the only one living in it right now, how he likes to do a little singing and songwriting in his spare time in the woods, how he goes out fishing in the lake in the summer. It’s a nice time between the two of them. Taemin finds himself relaxed and comfortable as he finishes up his dinner, grateful for Jonghyun’s easy hospitality. He stutters and flubs quite a few of his words, but Jonghyun doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s nothing but kind smiles and genuine interest.

Soon, like usual when he talks to people, Taemin starts feeling worn out and tired. Luckily for him, it only just starts happening as he’s washing his own dishes in Jonghyun’s sink. He made it through a nice dinner without his mood dragging him down. Now, as Jonghyun offers to walk him home through the woods in the dark, he’ll be able to hide his fatigue behind the guise of it being a long day. By the time they reach his place, it won’t even matter that Taemin feels his energy draining out of him by the second.

Jonghyun’s expert shortcut through the woods is just a little bit to the left of what Taemin had been using himself. They’re silent as they walk, but it’s a comfortable silence, one where Jonghyun lifts his flashlight from the ground and shines it instead on the painting that he offered to carry. Maybe he wants to buy it or something. Taemin could give him a discount for being such a nice neighbor. After looking it over curiously for a minute, though, Jonghyun fits it back under his arm with a satisfied looking smile. Taemin can’t even find it in himself to be disappointed. That expression is too impressed to get annoyed at. A few minutes after, Taemin shines his own flashlight--the one Jonghyun gave him just two weeks ago--on the back door of his house.

“Welcome home,” Jonghyun smiles, wiggling his own light over the wood of Taemin’s back wall. Taemin smiles thankfully at him, taking his painting back under his own arm and digging in his bag for his key.

“Thanks for dinner,” he remembers to say over his shoulder as he jams it into the lock. Jonghyun waves a dismissive hand.

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Also, hey, about the wolves….” He trails off as Taemin pushes his door open with his shoulder. Dropping his stuff just inside the entrance, Taemin turns back to him with a quiet, curious hum. What about the wolves? Jonghyun looks at him closely for a moment, thumbing the switch of his flashlight on and off. “There is one,” he says, “that comes around here sometimes. Dark brownish grey, with white fluffs on his tail and ears.” He pauses there, raising his eyebrows at Taemin in a look that means he’s trusting Taemin with this information. Taemin supposes he lied about not seeing any in this part of the woods before because he felt some kind of responsibility, as probably the only one to know about the wolf. He rubs his eye tiredly, really wishing that he were more alert to really pay attention to Jonghyun’s words.

“Is it--he,” Taemin corrects himself, remembering the pronoun Jonghyun used, remembering that these wolves are also people, “friendly?” His voice rises at the end, uncertain. He doesn’t know if Jonghyun is telling this because the wolf is nice or because he wants to warn Taemin. At his question, some of the hesitation in Jonghyun’s posture deflates into a laugh.

  
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he says. “A big softie. If you see him around, just be chill, you know? Don’t make a fuss.”  
  


“Got it,” Taemin agrees, breathing out a soft laugh. Like he even needs to be told that. He is the least fussy person that he knows. “If I ever do see him, I’ll probably just try to get him in a painting, to be honest,” he shrugs. Jonghyun smiles at his simple acceptance, looking relieved.

“Okay,” he says. “Well--goodnight.” He nods his head and gives Taemin a wave; Taemin copies him as he slips inside of his house and closes the door.

~

Summer shifts into Fall slowly but surely. Taemin doesn’t notice at first, but soon, it’s obvious in the chill in the air and the colorful leaves that he shuffles through every night in his journeys through the forest. It makes him smile, makes him flap around in overlarge sweaters and turns his sunsets into splashes of gold and red. They’re selling well; even better than they did when he was in the city. He hasn’t visited back yet, but Kibum emails and texts him all of the time and Taemin mailed him a nice birthday present, so he guesses that that’s close enough. He’s not ready to visit yet. He’s still enjoying his life alone.

Or, almost alone. He and Jonghyun see each other often enough, exchange friendly waves and little smiles. Occasionally Taemin stops by his house for a few minutes to show him his sunsets, and on one of his more social days in September he brought Jonghyun over a cinnamon apple pie, something that he was very proud of and Jonghyun was very impressed by. Jonghyun lets him be on his own for the most part though, which Taemin greatly appreciates. He loves not feeling any pressure to be a talkative neighbor. He loves being able to spend his time alone, dancing in his living room, making big breakfasts whenever he wants, listening to the wolves singing at night, sitting in the dirt out back and planning out where his garden is going to go in the spring.

Two days into October, after Taemin has made both himself and Jonghyun pumpkin pies and had way too much fun setting up Halloween decorations for no one but himself, Jonghyun catches Taemin sitting on the shore of the lake, letting pebbly sand fall through his fingers as he waits for the sun to get low enough for some nicer colors.

“I knew I’d find you out here,” he grins as he lowers himself down next to Taemin and gets comfy in the sand. Taemin smiles lazily back, scooting a little bit over so they’re not so close.

“How could you have guessed?” he asks. Jonghyun shrugs and reaches over to play with Taemin’s little bottles of paint and things in his box. With a quick glance at the sky, Taemin joins Jonghyun in rummaging around the box for his little pallet tray to start getting ready.

“Just a feeling I had,” Jonghyun says. Taemin hums in reply. He can feel that. He wonders why Jonghyun was out looking for him, but he assumes that Jonghyun is going to tell him, so he doesn’t ask. Instead, he works on popping open his paints and squidging colors into their usual spaces, and also on not giggling at the word “squidging” like he usually does when Jonghyun isn’t around. When he reaches for the light blue, Jonghyun squeezes out a little blob for him instead, looking all proud of himself for helping. Taemin laughs softly and gets up onto his knees on his pillow so he won’t be sitting at such an awkward angle when he starts to paint. Next to him, Jonghyun leans back and crosses his legs.

“Anyway,” Jonghyun says. “I figured I should tell you that I’m leaving for vacation tomorrow morning. Like, for real this time,” he adds when Taemin raises playful eyebrows at him over his shoulder. Jonghyun cocks one in response. “So if you wanted to declare your undying love for me, you’d better do it now,” he says. Taemin laughs, shaking his head fondly as he turns back to his canvas. He reaches absentmindedly to his side to tug his paints and supplies to a better position.

“I think I’ll hold onto my feelings for a little bit longer,” he says. Looking up at the horizon, he frowns when he notices a stray tree branch is kind of messing up his balance. He scoots everything a few inches to the right, squints at the tree again, and shrugs. That’s a good enough angle.

“Well, If you wanna let me know, I’m all ears,” Jonghyun tells him. Taemin chuckles again as he dabs some orange on his brush to start. Jonghyun lets him paint in silence, only leaning forward once while Taemin is rinsing off one of his brushes to gently poke a tiny speck of blue onto his finger. Taemin watches him with amusement for a moment as he smears it between his pointer finger and thumb with interest. He finishes just as the sun is almost all the way gone, the sky already turning a deep blue in contrast to the fiery orange of his painting. He blends some of the lower bushes slowly, puffing his lips up as he looks at the whole thing.

“Mmm,” he hums. “What do you think?” He turns to Jonghyun, who hums in thought as well, glancing quickly between his painting and the horizon.

“I think…,” he says slowly, moving to his hands and knees to squint at it better. “Maybe a little less lake and a little more bush, here,” he says. He almost pokes the green with his blue finger before he hisses and closes his hand, tapping the spot gently with his knuckle instead. Taemin snorts at his sheepish smile, but follows his advice and adds more bush there. When he pulls his brush back again, both of them stare at it for a moment before Jonghyun claps, gentle little applause for Taemin’s skill. “Perfect,” he smiles. Taemin smiles back, flattered.

“Thanks,” he says as he picks up his smallest brush and signs his name at the bottom of the piece. It should be dry in no time. He’ll varnish it in the morning, but for now, he pulls out a container of clean water and some paper towels to wipe his pallet with so it’s less of a mess to deal with later. Jonghyun comes up to grab a paper towel as well to help him and he smiles thankfully. “How long are you gonna be gone?” he asks. He can’t imagine that Jonghyun would want to stay out there for very long when it’ll probably start snowing soon.

“Uh, a month, maybe a month and a half,” Jonghyun shrugs. “It starts really snowing around November.” He makes a face and Taemin smiles to himself. He likes how he was able to predict that, how he knows Jonghyun well enough despite not spending a whole lot of time with him. He nods in understanding as he rubs at a little dried speck of purple.

“November is like, prime comfort food season,” he says. October is for sweets and December is for fancy shit, but November is all biscuits and soups and things that warm the soul. “Tell me when you get back and I’ll make you something nice?” he offers. He’ll probably be feeling social at some point in November. Jonghyun gasps softly, lips lifting up into an excited little smile.

“I’d like that,” he says earnestly. “Like a crumb cake or something. I always use the box mix, but….” He looks up at Taemin with a hopeful little smile. Taemin laughs. He can make a crumb cake, yeah.

“Can do,” he says. He holds out his hand for Jonghyun’s dirty paper towel and stuffs it into a little plastic baggie, then stuffs that in his pocket and everything else back into the box. When he reaches out to gently tap at his canvas, he finds that it’s still kind of wet, but not too much that he can’t carry it back right now. He stands up straight and offers Jonghyun his hand to help him up as well. Jonghyun picks up his box of paint supplies with an easy wave of his hand when Taemin moves to take it from him.

“I got it,” he says simply. Taemin smiles at him in gratitude. Pulling his bag over his shoulder and picking his canvas up carefully, he leans it against Jonghyun’s leg, wrestles with his easel for a moment to get it to collapse, and then grabs each in both hands. Then he looks up to lock eyes with Jonghyun. He suddenly realizes that he doesn’t really have anything to say. “Let’s go, then,” seems too weird and cliché. Jonghyun smirks after a moment, probably because he’s realized that Taemin doesn’t know what to say either.

“Let’s go, then,” he says, gesturing down the path with the box. Taemin breathes out a soft laugh and turns to follow him through the trees. Well, all right then.

Jonghyun stays for a glass of water and a cookie when they reach Taemin’s house, just a few minutes that Taemin is happy to allow him. Then he’s gone, waving a cheery goodbye as he wanders through the darkness to his own house. Taemin gets himself all snuggly in bed with his laptop just a few minutes later. He thinks that maybe he could wake up early enough to make Jonghyun a few muffins or something to take with him, but by the time he falls asleep, it’s well passed three in the morning. By the time he wakes up, the sun is high in the sky and Jonghyun is already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #jonghyun squinting at the food pyramid: i am a responsible adult and i know how to feed myself like a normal human  
> #also tho he eats what he likes nd doesnt feel bad about it and ppl that say u should only eat certain foods with other certain foods are Boring  
> #taem agrees  
> #also listen.... jongtae sitting in the sand.... watching the waves and the sunset.... quietly... together... im nut


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He breathes slowly, enjoying the fresh air, moist dirt underneath him, pine and wood all around him, the faintest hint of smoke from someone’s chimney far away. It’s peacefully silent, also, nothing but sleepy bird calls and rustling wind–until the wolves start howling.  
> [tumblr](http://katrinawritesthings.tumblr.com/post/172173923801/jonghyuntaemin-a-year-of-sunsets-part-35-pg)

Taemin notices that Jonghyun is back on Halloween morning. He sees the little trail of smoke curling up from Jonghyun’s chimney as he slumps on his back porch and eats his cereal. Watching it fade into the clouds through half-opened eyes, Taemin hums to himself. This is kind of weird timing. **  
**

He’s really been wanting Jonghyun to come back lately so he could have an excuse to bake something, but at the same time, he hasn’t felt like talking to anyone at all for the passed few days. He still doesn’t feel like doing more than checking his snaps every so often. A small group of birds cut through the grey morning sky as Taemin swallows the leftover sugar he added to his cereal and then drinks the milk. He watches them flutter over the trees for a few minutes before taking a deep breath and willing himself to get up and go back inside. He’ll make some crumb cupcakes. If he gets up the motivation to go visit Jonghyun, they’ll be for Jonghyun, but otherwise, they’ll be just for himself.

He shuffles into his kitchen, washes his bowl, checks his coffee machine, and pulls out his flour to start sifting.

It’s as he’s taking the last cupcakes that he hasn’t eaten yet off of the cooling rack that he hears Jonghyun’s truck. He pauses, turning to squint out of his front window. After a moment, he sees Jonghyun’s big ass truck putt passed his house and down the road through the trees. He must be going to the town to pick up some groceries. Hmm. Taemin looks down at his cupcakes. Jonghyun should take more than ten minutes to get back.

He gathers up a dozen and a half and puts them all nice and pretty in a tupperware container. Hopefully by the time Jonghyun finishes and comes to return the container Taemin will feel more up to talking. Scrawling out a quick note  _(“To Jonghyun, observe as I avoid social contact and initiate social contact at the same time by leaving these here and fucking off while you’re still at the store, please don’t come talk to me for another few days, also please enjoy c:, from Taemin,”) (“P.S: Welcome home!!!”) (“P.P.S: Happy Halloween ouo”) (P.P.P.S: They taste better if you microwave them for a few seconds first.”),_ Taemin tapes it to the top of the box and leaves it on the counter to grab his jacket from the table.

The walk through the trees to Jonghyun’s house is cold, but also brisk, his feet expertly picking their way through exposed roots and small bushes. He’s really getting the first mile or two radius around here memorized and he’s proud of himself. He stamps dirt off of his shoes so he doesn’t track it onto Jonghyun’s nice porch steps. Pausing at the door, he struggles internally for a moment between choosing the bench under the front window and just plonking the box down on Jonghyun’s welcome mat. He goes with the latter, just to make sure Jonghyun doesn’t miss it, and is hopping back down the steps before even a minute has passed. He smiles to himself as he shuffles quickly back to his own house, inhaling deep, exhaling happiness.

He debates for a moment on whether or not to build himself a little fire when he gets back inside, but decides against it. He doesn’t want to go to the trouble. Instead he just bundles himself up on his couch with his laptop and turns on the tv to watch his tacky judge shows. He thinks today after these but before he goes out to paint the sunset he’ll work on some smaller extra pieces. Close up tree branches, fireplace bricks, a leafy dirt path, whatever. Just foresty aesthetics that he can sell on the side so his site isn’t too repetitive and so there are some cheaper options. He can bang a few out from memory while he watches stuff on his laptop no problem. He’s feeling productive today.

It’s as he’s shuffling into his kitchen during a commercial to grab some snacks that he hears Jonghyun’s truck rumbling down the dirt road again. He glances through his front window in time to see it roll passed his house and further into the forest, then smiles to himself as he pours out some strawberry lemonade. Jonghyun’s gonna be so excited to see his little cupcakes waiting for him. Taemin loves that shit. He hopes Jonghyun likes them.

He nuzzles himself back into his couch with his food, smiling lazily at the spooky Halloween commercials on the tv. This is nice. This is good. This is going to be a good day. He can tell.

A little bit after noon he takes his laptop and charger and scoots into his art room, smiling at all of his colored and empty canvasses. His whole house smells like paint but in here it’s much more pronounced, offset just a touch by the woody smell of the little basket of leaves and rocks and pinecones he’s collected to use for reference. He breathes slowly, enjoying the scent filling his nose. He sets himself up with his little house easel facing the open window, his paint on one side and his laptop on the other. With some music video Kibum sent him to watch loading silently, he dips his brush into a nice dark brown and starts to work.

He’s brushed up a leafy canopy, a lazy dock on a lake, wind chimes in front of a lush forest, and is just adding a cute little lizard friend camouflaged onto a fallen log by the time the sun starts getting a little low. He glances out of his window as he dots little specks onto the lizard’s back. Hmm. He had lunch a few hours ago and some more snacks after that; he can probably wait until after he paints the sunset to have dinner today. He’s not going to go far anyway. Today he’s going to paint his house, all spooky and decorated for Halloween. Technically he’s already done five paintings of his house all spooky and creepy so he could sell them to people before the holiday, but he wants one authentic for himself. Next year he’ll replace the painting of his house above his fireplace with it in October so it matches. It’ll be adorable.

He adds his finishing touches to the piece he’s working on now and signs his name at the bottom, then carefully picks it up and sets it next to the other three to dry. He’ll varnish them in the morning and then scan and take pictures of them for his site whenever that dries. From there he heads to his kitchen for a water bottle from the fridge before he gathers up all of his outside painting stuff from his sitting table. Carrying it outside with him, he gets settled on his favorite boulder across the road from his house and squishes out his paints onto his palette.

The sun is still a little too high to be a proper sunset, so he starts by just blobbing in the general outline of his house and the trees behind it. He can touch up the colors a little bit later if he needs to to make them match the sky. He breathes slowly, enjoying the fresh air, moist dirt underneath him, pine and wood all around him, the faintest hint of smoke from someone’s chimney far away. It’s peacefully silent, also, nothing but sleepy bird calls and rustling wind–until the wolves start howling.

He pauses in his work at the first few notes, raising his eyebrows with a hum. Ooh. Nice. He loves when they do this. He was a little irrationally disappointed the first time he heard them, when it wasn’t midnight and during a full moon and enchantingly eerie and everything, but he’s gotten over that. He likes these casual songs that they just start up whenever.

They rise and fall, notes deliberately changing, each wolf voice harmonizing with the others. It sounds like a real song, beautiful and flowing, and it makes Taemin want to close his eyes for a few minutes just to listen closer. He wishes he could take his focus off of his sunset for that long, but then he’d probably miss it. He just hopes that they’ll still be going by the time he’s done.

As he’s painting, he notes that this time the wolf howls  _do_  seem a little spookier than usual. A little creepy, a little unsettling but still playful in their tones. He wonders if they practise this, if they all have little, quieter singing meetings that Taemin can’t hear from his house. Maybe they somehow know it’s Halloween, too, and are singing this song specifically for it. Taemin grins to himself, imagining a group of wolves all sitting in a little circle in a cave den, intently listening to their music teacher and reading notes off of an extremely out-of-place chalkboard.

The distant rumbling of a truck coming down the road only interrupts his listening to their song for as long as it takes him to notice it and then decide to ignore it. Probably someone from the town going camping or coming home late. He mixes a little berry pink into his orange to get better color that will match what the sun is starting to do behind his house.

He’s painting the cute mini jack-o-lantern on his second porch step when the truck finally putts up the road to pass him. Taemin ignores it in favor of switching to one of his smaller brushes to add detail.

He looks up to wait for it to pass so he can continue his painting, but instead, it stops smack dab in the middle of the road, right between Taemin and his house. Taemin blinks, confused. What the fuck.

In the time it takes for him to actually recognize the truck as Jonghyun’s, Jonghyun has pushed open the door and hopped out. Taemin watches blankly as he opens his backseat door, grabs a paper bag from the store in town, and carries it up to Taemin’s front door. Oh. Hmm. He didn’t even hear Jonghyun leaving a second time. He takes a sip from his water bottle while Jonghyun stumbles on his third step, braces himself on the wall, and puts the bag down on his welcome mat. He pulls out a notepad and scribbles something down quickly, then sticks it to the bag and hops back down the steps towards his truck and Taemin behind it, a cheery smile on his face. He’s all the way back to the driver's’ seat and grabbing the handle to open it when he pauses, turns around, and looks straight at Taemin.

Taemin quirks a brow and waves with his paintbrush as Jonghyun’s cheeks turn the same pink as the sunset behind him.

“Oh,” Jonghyun says, a breath of a word.

“Hi,” Taemin says back, more amused than confused now. Jonghyun grins sheepishly, gesturing back at his front door, higher at the orange sky.

“I thought, uh, you would be, you know, out in the forest somewhere,” he says. Taemin snorts. Good plan, bad day.

“Spooky Halloween holiday house sunset,” he says with a shrug. Jonghyun nods, one hand smothering a giggle from his lips. Taemin feels himself smiling wider at Jonghyun’s little predicament as well.

“Okay, well, uh,” Jonghyun says. He clears his throat quickly, but it doesn’t help his rough voice much. “Bye,” he says, giving Taemin a little wave before pulling open his truck door and getting in. Taemin snorts, but waves back lazily. He watches Jonghyun start his truck and run his fingers through his hair as he drives away, more entertained than he’s been all day. That was. Something. He’s glad Jonghyun didn’t try to stick around and explain himself more. He still doesn’t feel like talking much at all.

He gets back to his painting easily, the sun now at a perfect spot to start really blending his colors and getting the background in. He finishes his quick pumpkin detail first before switching back to his large brush to do that. As he paints and Jonghyun’s truck fades away into the forest, the wolves howling fade back into his ears, musical and gorgeous. He smiles lazily as he works. This is nice. Calm and relaxing and fun. He loves living here.

With his big flashlight behind him after the sun fully goes down, Taemin finishes his sunset with a note of satisfaction. He looks it over happily as he signs his name at the bottom. It’s adorable; a homey little cabin in the woods with spooky decorations all over and a beautiful sunset in the back. He couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome.

He takes his stuff back inside in a couple of separate trips just because he can, because he doesn’t have to carry it all at once through a mile of forest. He takes his time, shuffling the dirt under his shoes, cleaning his brushes and palette in the kitchen sink, almost forgetting his boulder pillow and scuttling back out there to grab it. Only when he’s sure that he’s gotten everything cleaned up and put away does he go back out a final time to see what Jonghyun went and got for him.

He reads the note first. It’s short and simple, messy handwriting on cute pink list paper:

_To Taemin_

_Thanks for the cupcakes!! They’re delicious and I love them. When I finish them I’ll bring the container back and come for a visit._

_Also, I got you some Halloween candy to put out tonight. Usually it’s quiet, but sometimes the teenagers from the town like to come all the way out here and it’s better to just let them take handfuls of chocolate than to come back to a TP’d house. Trust me._

_Your favorite forest babe, Jonghyun (✿ㅎㅅㅎ)_

_P.S.: Don’t forget the candy out all night, though. Racoons :v_

Taemin snorts softly as he finishes the note. Raccoons indeed. He peeps inside the bag next, hissing softly in victory when he sees that Jonghyun’s gotten him two big bags of peanut butter cups. Bless. He loves.

He finds one of his large bowls, empties out a bag and a half of the candy into it, and then lugs one of his sitting table chairs out onto his front porch. He plonks the bowl down unceremoniously on the seat, flicks the porch light on, and goes back inside. There. Simple enough. That should be fine. It worked for the city kids and it should still work here.

Opening one of the extra peanut butter cups for himself, he smiles around his first bite as he heads to the kitchen to start something for dinner. He doesn’t feel like doing much tonight. He thinks he’ll just throw some stuff in the oven and shower really quick while it’s cooking. It’ll be good.

When he gets out of the shower and dries himself off, he leaves the bathroom to almost done food and the soothing sound of the wolves  _still_  howling up a song outside. He wonders how long they’re going to go for. He hopes it’s long enough for him to take his candy back inside and fall asleep with them as his lullaby. It probably won’t be, but he can dream.

~

November comes with a spike of social interaction that Taemin didn’t ask for whatsoever.

The drain of city life wore Kibum out before Taemin’s loneliness got to him, so it was Kibum that caved and drove all the way out to visit Taemin in the forest first a few days into the month. Taemin didn’t mind that, especially with the twenty dollars from their bet nestled snugly in his pocket. It was nice, relaxing, with him lying on the floor while Kibum talked endlessly at him and flicked through his tv channels to find his fashion shows. Taemin eventually flopped himself on top of his friend on the couch, which shut him up after the few minutes he spent whining and complaining.

Napping on top of Kibum was good, as it always is, and painting Kibum silhouetted dramatically against the sunset was as fun as he remembers it being. Being judged for his choice of junk food wasn’t fun, but it was a warm kind of familiar that made Taemin feel fuzzy on the inside and interrupt Kibum’s grumbling with a hug and a nuzzle. Surprisingly enough, after that, Kibum didn’t have many more things to say about his state of living and just started cooking Taemin dinner instead.

His friend stayed for two days, sharing Taemin’s bed with him and only protesting a little bit at his clingy and snuggly sleep habits, before leaving again on Sunday to throw himself back into the extroverted mess of the city with a promise to keep texting Taemin even if he didn’t feel like replying. Taemin appreciated it.

A week after that Jonghyun came back with his cupcake container and stayed for a few hours just to talk before Taemin went out to paint a sunset, which went pretty okay, in Taemin’s opinion. He had the tv on while Jonghyun was there so if he didn’t have anything to say they could both pretend like they were interested in what they were watching. And Jonghyun complimented him a lot on his baking skills, which admittedly made him glow and smile wide. He does love being complimented.

His first solo Thanksgiving was arguably the worst experience Taemin thinks he’ll ever have in this house, largely due to the fact that his family insisted on visiting him and it wasn’t solo at all.

Already drained from two whole social interactions that month, it was garbage from start to finish. From taking his decorative tentacle dildo off of the mantle and hiding it in his closet, to cooking almost a whole group meal by himself, to forcing himself to be polite as he explained that his paintings take time and cost real life money and can’t just be given away, and to when they finally left, he was drained from the start and didn’t really enjoy any of it. The only good part was their uncomfortable faces when he casually spent the whole time talking about the real, truthful history of the holiday.

When December finally arrives he firmly clears his schedule for the entire month and spends the whole thing in peaceful, solitary silence, snuggled up in blankies with just his laptop and his easel for company. It’s fucking wonderful and he’s never been happier in his life.

The temperature drops, snow falls in gentle flakes outside, his fire crackles and pops cozily in his fireplace. He feels blissful, calm and peaceful in the silence of the forest, no one bothering him, no expectations, no nothing. Just him, a cup of hot white chocolate every day, and scarves and fluffy warm clothes to wrap himself up in while he paints frosted tree branches and a decorated house and thin, lacy ice forming on the lake.

And then January hits and with it, the  _real_ snow.

Taemin knows what snow is; he’s experienced rough blizzards and several feet deep falls before in the city, but he still manages to be thrown off by the first real snowfall in the forest so much that he has to spend the night at Jonghyun’s house because he’s too scared to walk the half mile back to his place in the dark for once.

Jonghyun smothers most of his giggles in his hands when Taemin pouts and blushes, which is honestly good enough of a reaction for Taemin. He knows that he fucked up. He’s fine with Jonghyun snickering at him as long as he doesn’t rub it in.

They frick that night, kind of; they wound up snuggling together on Jonghyun’s couch watching videos on his laptop, and then they wound up talking about relationships and sex things, and then each other, and then they wound up making out, and then they wound up with their dicks in each others’ hands and their soft groans mixed together in the dim lamplight of the room.

It was a pretty good pair of handjobs, both of them agree, but they also agree that they aren’t that compatible this way and probably wouldn’t enjoy doing more sex things together. Not really a loss, Taemin thinks. He’s some kind of ace that he forgot the name of, Jonghyun is some kind of something with a low libido that he never really bothered to figure out, both of them are whatever about it. Snuggling Jonghyun was still super comfortable and he’ll definitely be trying to sneak more of that into his life from now on, at least.

He gets a ride back to his house from Jonghyun that morning, where he spends the rest of winter, mostly painting shots of his frosty little house and the trees directly surrounding it. In February he buries himself in strawberry and chocolate sweets and only smirks a little bit when Kibum shows up again for a “casual” visit and leaves with a container of decadent, heart-shaped chocolate raspberry tarts that Taemin makes for him.

The snow starts letting up by the time the month ends, and Taemin finds himself sitting on his front porch more often, smiling at the strawberry pots he got all set up to hang from his awning. They’re going to sprout and grow and give him sweet little berries soon. He knows it. The sight of them makes him smile wide, their presence a clear indicator that he’s finally settling in and starting a new cycle here in his new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #they did the Frickie Dickie  
> #taem eats all of his pb cups in like three days and feels dead on the inside but its w/e hes Fine  
> #that second part with like three months was me just Not Wanting to write all of those scenes out for real lmao  
> #nd it feels kinda bad nd also awkward but u kno its w/e im Fine  
> #kibum showing up on valentines day: Wow Really Is It The Holiday??? I Didnt Notice : ) U Should Make Something To Celebrate : )))  
> #taem: and u call Me a lil shit  
> #key: : ))))))))))))))


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wishes his first encounter with a shapeshifter wasn’t while he was half awake and half fucking terrified of being eaten in the dead of night. He’s certain that he wouldn’t be nearly this freaked out if he didn’t take a nap by accident. The disorientation is fucking with him. Maybe he can kinda… just….
> 
> “Hey,” he calls out softly towards the bushes.  
> [tumblr](http://katrinawritesthings.tumblr.com/post/172416897966/jonghyuntaemin-a-year-of-sunsets-part-45-pg)

Taemin is just getting ready to head out to the upper east side of the lake to paint a sunset from a different angle when he hears the wolves start howling. It makes him pause as he’s tugging his backpack over his shoulders. He glances up at the sky, at where the sun is still at least an hour from setting and the faded shadow of moon that he can see isn’t even close to full. He kind of wants to take a snap of this to send to Kibum to prove that all of his old wolf clichés are untrue, but he doesn’t want to get it out of his backpack. He shrugs after a moment, fitting his easel and canvas more securely under his arm and locking his door behind him.

When he reaches the shore of the lake, he pauses again. He was going to head north and east, but he remembers Jonghyun saying that the wolves all lived more northwest instead. He glances quickly each way before heading left. If he’s going to be out here while they’re singing, he wants to be closer to them.

Thankfully, when he reaches the corner of the lake he finds that someone’s set up some comfy looking camp chairs up on the shore. Probably that other neighbor Jonghyun told him about one time that’s always fishing over here and likes to keep to themself even more than Taemin does. They’re not here right now to yell at Taemin, so he sits himself down all snug and comfortable and sets up his easel in the sand.

It’s at least half an hour before the sun will be low enough for him to guesstimate the general tone of his painting; half an hour in which he sits back, relaxes, watches the soft waves shift over the shore, and attempts to send a snap video of the forest and the wolves singing to Kibum before he gives up and resolves to send it when he gets back home where he actually has service.

He has no idea how it happens, but somehow he fades from closing his eyes and enjoying the wind ruffling through his hair to snapping his eyes open half a second before he falls out of his chair into the sand.

He groans, curling into a little ball before struggling to push himself up to his knees. What the fuck. He wasn’t even tired. He doesn’t deserve this. He squeezes his eyes shut to rub accidental sleep out of them, then opens them to darkness. He frowns, confused, closes them again and reopens them, panics because he can’t see anything, and then understands.

It’s a little bit too late for him to paint his sunset tonight, he thinks. He turns to squint at the sky. At least the moon and the stars give him a tiny bit of light, once his eyes adjust. He feels up his pockets for his phone, and when he taps the flashlight app, he winces at how fucking bright it is. He knew he should’ve spent the extra few minutes looking for that one fancy flashlight app he used to have with all of the different settings when he switched phones last year. He shines it over the grainy pebbles of the shore until he finds his bag. Then he fumbles for the zipper and shoves his arm in there until he finds the big flashlight Jonghyun gave him.

That light is even brighter, and he groans again when he flicks both on. His phone tells him that it’s almost midnight before he puts it back into his pocket and he sighs. He really fucked up. He’s gonna have to paint two things tomorrow and his sleep schedule is going to be so off and–and he jumps when his light shines through the trees for a second and illuminates two bright circles low to the ground.

“Frick,” he whispers as the shadow connected to those eyes darts away with a rustle into the bushes. It’s a soft, quiet noise, but it’s still heavy, the only sound other than the slow wind through the trees and soft splishes of the lake. The wolves have stopped their howling and it’s almost eerie how loud the silence is now without them. Taemin reaches for his bag without taking his eyes off of the place where the eyes disappeared, jumpy and paranoid to be out here in the middle of the night. He tries to think of what it could have been; bunnies or deer or whatever other skittish creatures would be no problem, but if it was a predator….

He tries to think back to what Jonghyun told him about the forest a few weeks ago. He’s sure he mentioned something on whether or not the wolves were the only predators around here, but he can’t for the life of him remember. Still, though. He feels like a big cat of some sort wouldn’t attack him if he was aware and he feels like a bear would be considerably larger than the eyes he saw. He’s probably fine. He tells himself this, over and over, as he quickly gathers up his easel and canvas and shines his light up the shore to find the path. He still shivers under his sweater from the uneasy chill that raises goosebumps over his skin.

As he’s trudging back up to the little dirt road, another rustle comes from the bushes and he flinches. This time he catches a bushy tail flicking out of the beam of his light. He breathes a tiny fraction easier. That was definitely a wolf tail. Fuck. He wishes his first encounter with a shapeshifter wasn’t while he was half awake and half fucking terrified of being eaten in the dead of night. He’s certain that he wouldn’t be nearly this freaked out if he didn’t take a fucking nap by accident. The disorientation is fucking with him. Maybe he can kinda… just….

“Hey,” he calls out softly towards the bushes. “Um. If you’re, like, friendly, or like–not going to eat me, can you just. Bark. Twice. Or something. In the gentlest way possible. Please. I mean, I know you’re not, but I’m just–I’m really anxious right now and–”

A soft, soft, soft, gentle  _whuff_ cuts him off. Two whuffs. Taemin has never been more happy to hear a dog noise in his life. He’s still jumpy, but the reassurance lets him relax enough to take a deep breath and start walking again. This isn’t the end of the world. He knew, before he moved here, that something like this was going to happen eventually. Getting lost in the woods at night was practically inevitable. He’s not even lost; he’s just out way too late. It’s about a half hour walk back home. He’s not looking forward to it at all, but it’s not like he can just fall asleep in the dirt all night.

“Okay, Tae, you can do this,” he tells himself. “You’re not gonna be brutally murdered in the woods in the middle of the night.” He holds his easel to his chest and squints across the lake to see if he can see the glow of the porch light that he left on. He can’t. “You’re a feelgood comedy, not a murder thriller,” he sighs. “You’re gonna keep walking and get home and fall asleep in your nice warm bed and keep loving your wonderful life and–”

Another rustle from the bushes cuts his reassurances off. He glances at the trees to his right with a wince. Fuck. The wolf is still following him.

“Stop talking to yourself,” he snaps at himself. “They’re gonna think you’re fucking weird–fuck.” He closes his eyes for a moment to grimace at the sky. How can he make such a bad first impression all by himself like this? “Please don’t think I’m weird,” he whines at the forest. This probably isn’t helping him. “I’m Taemin,” he says in the general direction of where he thinks the wolf is. “I moved into the forest like half a year ago? And I paint sunsets to sell on the internet.”

He doesn’t really know why he’s introducing himself to a random wolf that was apparently spying on him while he slept. Probably because it makes it easier to keep walking. He hopes they’re still following him and listening to him speak. Pretending that they’re escorting him back to his house with their fangy protection makes it easier to keep walking too.

“I’m friends with Jonghyun,” he offers to the trees. “I don’t know if you know him–he lives by me and goes out camping a lot and he says he’s seen you guys chilling around out there.” He’s sure that if Jonghyun has seen the wolves then he wolves have seen him. That just makes sense. “He’s pretty cool,” he mumbles. He stumbles on a rock in the path and scrunches his face as he bravely takes bigger steps to act like he didn’t. Then he scrunches his face for a different reason. “I mean, when I say he’s my friend, I mean. I hope he’s my friend,” he says. He doesn’t know how Jonghyun feels. Maybe he’s just a nice neighbor to Jonghyun and they’re not friends yet in his book.

“I fucking… jerked him off a few months ago, I better be his friend,” he mutters. He has to be, honestly. You don’t jerk someone off in the middle of a blizzard and  _not_  be friends after that. “Anyway,” he says quickly, shaking his head and glancing to his side. He can still vaguely see the wolfy shape silently following him through the trees. That’s nice. He hasn’t driven them off and he hasn’t been left alone. “Jonghyun told me you were all rad and nice,” he tells the wolf. “And I hear y’all howling a lot. It’s really pretty.” He hopes he’s making a good impression with all of this rambling flattery. He wants this one wolf to like him and to bring back a good story of him to all of their wolf friends.

He’s getting closer to his house, he thinks; if he shines his light right, he can see the fork in the road between the curve of the lake and the path back to his place. He should start driving out to his paint locations, honestly, if they’re gonna take him this long to get back. If he’s feeling tired before he leaves he definitely will so something like this doesn’t happen again.

He makes himself walk the rest of the way in silence, holding his flashlight tightly and glancing into the trees every so often to make sure the wolf hasn’t left him alone. He’s not exactly at ease with them there following him from the shadows, but he knows he would be even more anxious if they weren’t. He likes the feeling of safety the company gives him. At least now if he does get brutally murdered by a serial killer or something then someone will know what happened to him. He hopes whichever wolf this is wouldn’t mind taking a day or two as a human to fill out some paperwork for his death.

“Okay, Tae, stop fucking thinking about death,” he mutters to himself. That shit isn’t going to help at all. He needs to just. Think about getting home and getting a snack and going to sleep in his very warm, very comfy, very safe bed. Yes.

Eventually, the dim glow of his porch light becomes visible down the path. He breathes a soft sigh of relief at the visual confirmation, hikes his bag more over his shoulders, and walks a little faster. Behind his house, he can see a faint plume of chimney smoke curling up from Jonghyun’s and tsks. Shit. He probably could have just texted him and asked for a ride, since he’s apparently still up so late. Bluh. Whatever. At least now he’ll know that for next time.

As he approaches his house and the wide clearing in front of it, he notices the silence of the forest soften just slightly. He stops in the middle of the road in front of his front porch to glance back at the trees. Oh. Right. The wolf probably isn’t going to just prance into plain sight after spending so long hiding. He steps tiredly the rest of the way up to his front door and wiggles his hand into his pocket for his keys.

Pushing the front door in and dropping his bag just inside, he takes a moment before going in himself to lean up on the wall and squint out at the trees. He doesn’t see–no, he does. The faintest movement in the low bushes and two big eyes peeping at him from the leaves. He smiles to see them still there.

“Thank you,” he calls softly. He hesitates, frowns at his low volume, but shakes himself of the doubt. Wolves have good hearing. He doesn’t need to repeat himself. “It was nice to meet you,” he adds, and then, for lack of any better ideas, “Good night.”

One quiet, soft, friendly  _whuff_  answers him before the eyes disappear and he hears the wolf rustling away through the leaves.

~

Taemin puffs his lips up as he stands behind his back door, rocking on his toes as he debates on whether or not to go outside yet. Guh. This is so stressful. He never should have asked Jonghyun to come over last night. He doesn’t  _need_ help figuring out his garden structure. He’s pretty sure that he could have muddled through it on his own. He doesn’t _need_ Jonghyun to come figure it out with him and he doesn’t  _need_ to be having a mini panic attack before noon.

He just. Doesn’t know if sitting outside and watching Jonghyun walk all the way up through the woods and too him would be more awkward than waiting for him to knock and opening the door. He doesn’t know which one would be worse and he hates it. He opens and closes his hands into little fists at his sides as he argues with himself for the fifth minute straight.

Bluh. Bluh bluh bluh. He’s just. He’s just gonna go out there. He’s just going to go out there and set up all of his little work tools on his back porch table and make his brunch muffins look cute and presentable and then wander around in the half frozen dirt behind his house so it looks like he’s already doing something when Jonghyun gets here. Yeah. That’s what he’s going to do.

And so he does that. He marches his way outside, grabs all of his tools and things out from the old shed that he still hasn’t really cleaned since he moved here, scoots back inside to get his muffins, sets everything up on the porch, and shuffles out into the mud. It’s only a little mushy; it’s only just starting to thaw out. He still has a few more weeks before it’ll actually be workable. He hopes it’s ready by the first day of spring. He wants to be really dramatic and sentimental and plant his very first seed then.

He’s shuffling a shallow line around what he’s guessing will be the perimeter of his garden in the dirt when he hears footsteps coming through the trees to him. Oh. Aha. There he is. He keeps up his shuffling, staring at the ground, until he reaches the end of his porch and looks up. Jonghyun is very much closer now, smile easy and hands in his jacket pockets as he steps up to the end of the porch a few seconds after Taemin.

“Hi friend,” he says.

“Hey,” Taemin says back, and frick. This is still. Kind of awkward. He rubs his neck sheepishly, then points up to his little porch table. “I made muffins,” he says. “If you. Wanted one. They’re blueberry.”

“Ooh,” Jonghyun says, and slips around Taemin and up the small steps. “Thanks,” he says as he grabs one. Taemin nods back, scuffing the mud awkwardly under his shoe. Jonghyun takes a bite of his muffin, swallows, licks his lips, and leans on the railing of his porch, surveying his empty back yard. He takes another bite and turns his gaze to Taemin with an amused brow raised, like he knows that Taemin doesn’t know what to say and he thinks it’s cute. Hecking heck.

“So tell me what you have figured out already,” Jonghyun says after another moment, nodding at the dirt and hiding his next grin in his muffin when Taemin blushes. God. At least he’s moving the conversation along instead of just letting Taemin flounder.

“Um,” Taemin says. He gestures blandly at his empty space. “I was thinking, just, a generic square, see,” he says, pointing out his faint outline. “And I know what I wanna plant, and when in the year, but I have to figure out, like, how to fit everything in…. I figured out the soil quality and bought fertilizer and I’ve been composting since I moved here…. I’m not entirely sure? What I’m going to do about, like, bunnies and squirrels and shit,” he mumbles. He hasn’t really thought that part through yet. “But, I mean, I’ll figure that out.”  He shrugs weakly and looks back up at Jonghyun. He’s staring seriously back out at the empty space now, thoughtfully tapping the remaining half of his muffin against his bottom lip.

“You can build a little wall,” he says. “Around the perimeter.” He points around the outline as well. “It won’t keep the critters out, but it’ll look cute.” He gives Taemin a little smile that Taemin snorts at. He’s not wrong.

“That’s, like, digging a trench and dealing with brick glue and levelling and doing math and shit, though,” he says, scrunching his face. “Maybe later. Not now.” He’ll build himself a little wall when he feels like suffering. “Or maybe I could make a wall out of flower boxes,” he thinks out loud. That would be cue, a little wooden, flower-topped wall. “That’s money, though.” He sighs a little pout and Jonghyun chuckles softly.

“I’ll help, if you ever do it,” he says. He finishes off his muffin and dusts crumbs off onto his pants. “So you just need me to help you figure out dimensions and shit?” he asks, looking at Taemin curiously.

“Mmhmm,” Taemin says. “There’s a tape measure on that table somewhere, and a notebook of graph paper.” He hates math but he’s planning on making everything as even and easily divisible as possible. He’s good at drawing symmetrical things. Jonghyun turns to find the stuff on the table, but before he picks it up, he turns back.

“Can I throw my jacket inside really quick?” he asks. He plucks at his dark grey jacket. “I don’t wanna get all sweaty.” His nose scrunches as he says the word and Taemin snorts.

“Yeah, it’s unlocked,” he says, waving a hand at the back door. Jonghyun shoots him a finger pistol and scoots inside. Taemin smiles fondly to himself. Jonghyun is good and cute. He’s gone inside only for a few moments, and then he comes back outside, grabs the things from the table, and then hops down the steps to join Taemin in the mud.

“So what do you want to grow?” he asks casually after a few minutes of them figuring out and marking the exact dimensions of the perimeter on the ground.

“Uh,” Taemin says. He uses the noise both to think and to stall for time as he finishes writing down the little numbers on his graph paper. “A tangerine tree, over there,” he says, pointing to the far left corner. He loves him some tiny oranges. “A plum tree in the other corner, both of them mini.” He doesn’t have the time or expendable effort to be caring for big trees. “Onions, garlic, carrots, I’m going to try potatoes once even though I’ve never succeeded at them before, watermelons, some cute flowers… a bunch of little herbs, but those will be window plants, so.” He trails off at that and rubs his nose, embarrassed to have gone off topic. Jonghyun nods encouragingly, though, as he slowly lets the tape measure coil back into itself.

“Sounds neat,” he says. “Would you mind if I came and picked some of your oranges whenever they grow?” he asks.

“Nah,” Taemin grins. If his last little tangerine tree is any indicator, he’ll have more than enough for himself once she really gets going. “Yes for the plums, though,” he says. “I am. Very greedy. For plums.” He loves his plums. Jonghyun laughs softly, shaking his head with something akin to fondness that makes Taemin feel nice. He likes when people like him. “Speaking of the trees…,” he mumbles, checking his notes on another page for how wide both of them are supposed to get. “Come measure…eight feet? Over here,” he says, wandering over to one of the corners.

“Yep,” Jonghyun says, following him and handing Taemin the little nub at the end of the measure. Taemin stands at the edge of the perimeter and waits for Jonghyun to back up to eight feet. He looks at the space between them, imagines a tree there, tries to imagine it as a wide circle with a walkable amount of space around it. He thinks that’ll be good, in theory, if he trims and grooms it right. This is just a rough outline anyway. He nods to himself and lets Jonghyun cake care of the tape measure while he sketches in the tree on the graph.

“Plum tree, too?” Jonghyun asks, taking half a step towards the other corner. Taemin glances up, nods, and shuffles over there slowly while he finishes his writing.

“Same size,” he says, taking his spot with the end of the measure in hand. They repeat that little process and Taemin sketches in the plum tree, then bites his lip and looks at the space that’s left on his graph. Hmm. He thinks maybe they should redo these measurements with his little circle measurer too. He wants to have everything really figured out before spring.

“Hey,” he says, looking up with a sudden thought. Jonghyun glances at him with a curious hum as he watches the measure. “Springs are, like, nice here, right?” Taemin asks. He’s been meaning to ask this for a while but he just kept forgetting. “Like, I’m not going to be struggling too hard, right?” He just wants a nice, easy, casual start to his garden. A few small crops and flowers to get it all rolling and get his confidence up.

“Uh,” Jonghyun says. He puffs his lips, thinks for a moment, shrugs. “I mean, I think so,” he says. “I like them, at least,” he shrugs. “I don’t really garden, but the weather is a pretty consistent warm and the rains are never too cold or too humid.” He shrugs again and Taemin hums. Alright then. That’s good.

“If it’s warm and not humid, does that mean you’re going to go camping soon then?” he asks, raising a brow when Jonghyun’s mouth curves into a sheepish grin.

“Pretty much, yeah,” he says. “I stay out the longest in spring. The pups are born around then and they sound really cute all yippy in the distance.” He bounces excitedly on his toes and Taemin snorts. Of course. Taemin likes how Jonghyun can be so predictable. He’s a simple egg on the outside, just living his life half in the forest and half  _super_ in the forest. Taemin appreciates it. He likes when the people in his life aren’t too complicated. It almost makes them easier to talk to.

“I think I want my watermelons between these two trees,” he says, backing up a few steps and gesturing between the corners. It’ll be cute. A little wiggly green patch. “So that’s… eight… from this edge.. a foot and a half between… start here?” He says it like a question, tapping a little spot on the ground. He thinks that’s right. Jonghyun obeys without question, handing him the nub of the tape measure.

“Hey, uh,” he says as he glances behind himself to back up. “Remember when we made out? Last month?” he asks. He’s avoiding eye contact, actually avoiding looking at Taemin for once, eyes over his shoulder and lip between his teeth. Taemin feels his own lips curving up into a smirk at the sight. Aw. He’s all shy about it.

“And jerked each other off on your couch during a blizzard, yeah,” he says. Yeah, he remembers it. Jonghyun backs up all the way to the far border, then steps in nine and a half feet. “What about it?” Taemin asks.

“This is fifteen feet ish,” Jonghyun mumbles, squinting at the tape. Taemin watches him for another second, highly amused, before ticking a little box and note on his graph.

“What about us making out?” he asks as Jonghyun starts stepping closer with the measure again. Jonghyun doesn’t say anything until he’s reached Taemin again, tape all safely rolled back up and gripped tightly in his hand. Then he looks up, looks down, looks back up again.

“I mean, I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I kinda liked it.” He meets Taemin’s eyes for a few seconds this time. “And I was thinking, maybe, you know, we could do it more often. Platonically. If you wanted.” He’s smiling again, a tiny little thing, and it’s nervous and hopeful. Taemin exhales a soft laugh and tucks his graph under his arm.

“I mean,” he says, and shrugs. “Wanna make out now?” he asks. Just to see if it’ll still be good. He wouldn’t mind. He liked kissing Jonghyun. “It’s been, like, ten whole minutes,” he says. “We can take a break.”

“Yeah?” Jonghyun asks. His smile is more natural now, more comfortable because of Taemin’s half-assed joke. Taemin feels mildly successful. Jonghyun takes another step closer, one hand lifting to play with the collar of Taemin’s shirt. “If you want,” he says, face so close to Taemin’s already. Taemin slides one arm around his shoulders, leans down, closes his eyes, and waits for Jonghyun to press their mouths together.

He does, softly and then firmly, his lips warm and plush just like last time in the stuffy heat of his home. Taemin pulls him closer and angles his head better into it, easily falling back into the same relaxed pace they spent so long on last month. Jonghyun sighs a soft breath against his mouth as he slips his arms around Taemin’s waist to cling loosely behind his back.

Taemin likes it; it’s simple, comfortable, but as they keep going, something just… doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t know what to with his other hand, for one. He can’t exactly hold Jonghyun with a pen and notepad in the way. He winds up tucking them to his chest between them, which probably wasn’t the best idea. Standing to kiss is awkward, and out in the middle of the forest like this, Jonghyun seems unsure as to whether or not to deepen it. He keeps pushing more into lazy, languid territory and then pulling back into soft, slow pecks. Taemin hums quietly as he curls his fingers into Jonghyun’s shirt sleeve.

“Something,” he mumbles when they break apart between two kisses. “Something feels, like.”

“Off?” Jonghyun asks, his voice an amused grin against Taemin’s lips. Taemin smiles back and nods, pulling away to lean their foreheads together.

“Maybe it’s different when we’re snuggled together on your couch in front of your fireplace under a blanket in the middle of a blizzard,” he says. Jonghyun’s quiet laugh is a puff of warm breath against Taemin’s cold skin.

“Maybe, yeah,” he says, stepping away from Taemin and taking his arms back for himself. “Oh, well,” he sighs. “Next winter, I guess.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Taemin agrees. He really did like kissing Jonghyun, when the mood and everything was right. “Maybe on my couch in my blankets in front of my fireplace next time,” he offers. He does like his own couch more than someone else’s. Jonghyun snorts, but nods, then stretches his arms out above his head. Taemin watches the flash of his cute little golden tum fondly.

“Anyway,” Jonghyun says. “What’s next, onions or whatever?” He gestures blandly at the rest of the garden space that they haven’t figured out yet. Taemin blinks, then remembers, bringing up his graph paper to check their progress.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, looking up to find Jonghyun already ready with the tape measure pulled out of his back pocket.

They finish up quickly enough, Jonghyun measuring all of Taemin’s space and Taemin marking it all down in his notepad. He’s going to map that out on his laptop later, maybe another day when he feels like it. He invites Jonghyun in for a quick glass of water before Jonghyun leaves to go back home, waving over his shoulder and taking another muffin with him. Taemin smiles as he watches him go. He’s good. Good and nice and sweet. Taemin doesn’t think he could have picked a better neighbor.

It’s not until the next morning that he notices the dark grey jacket thrown half neatly over one of his front table chairs. He pats it absentmindedly over breakfast, wondering if Jonghyun knows that he forgot it here. Hmm. If he does, he’ll come get it soon enough, and if he doesn’t Taemin is pretty sure that he’ll remember to give it to him at some point before he leaves.

Three weeks and a few days pass and neither of those happen; Taemin sits out on his back porch one night near the end of march and paints the beginnings of his little garden in the sunset with the jacket zipped up snugly around him. This time, it’s not until he notices a lack of chimney smoke from Jonghyun’s direction that he remembers that the jacket is Jonghyun’s and that it’s too late to give it back now.

After a moment of thought, he shrugs and continues his painting. It’s a very nice jacket. He’s sure that Jonghyun won’t mind him keeping it warm until he comes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #They Do The Kissie  
> #im lov... jongtae just.... platonically making out.... good shit meme....   
> #jong coming over in winter: what up im here to take like half of ur tangerines   
> #taem: mood??? go ahead   
> #taem doesnt grow potatoes and he is v v grumpy about it but he also can just buy potatoes whenever so he doesnt mind   
> #he tells jong about meeting the wolf nd jongs like ! rad nd u didnt get eaten or anything and taems like uwu ye it was cool   
> #he texts kibum too and kibums like did u get the wolfs autograph and taems like ?????? and kibums like u can have mine if u want   
> #taems still ?????   
> #kibum: snakes are cooler than wolves anyway   
> #taem: u cant even shift u did it Once by accident and freaked out bc u couldnt change back for a week   
> #kibum: do u want my autograph or not   
> #taem: Why????????   
> #kibum: idk im gonna send u my autograph anyway   
> #taem: u Continue to be more of a lil shit than me i want u to know that   
> #kibum: thanks   
> #AnyWay the next time theres a blizzard jongtae make out on taems couch and its Good and warm and not awkward and theyre v : )


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Holy shit,” Taemin whispers. Heck. Holy heckers. That is a real life wolf, right there in front of him, big and ruffly and fucking rad as hell. He scrambles to mix some of his paints together to form some form of brown, suddenly much more awake than he was a minute ago. “Heck fuck heck,” he whispers to himself.  
> [tumblr](http://katrinawritesthings.tumblr.com/post/172660796337/jonghyuntaemin-a-year-of-sunsets-part-55-pg)

Taemin lifts his thermos to take a drink, but only a small one. It’s way too hot out here already and he doesn’t want to suck down all of his ice water before he has to walk all the way home with his paint stuff on his back. He’s really enjoying the fancy new backpack he got that lets him carry his paintings around but he’s definitely not used to the weight of it all yet. He’s going to need all of his water and probably more on the way home to deal with that and the new June heat.

Come to think of it, he probably should have waited for the fall to start using his new backpack. Then it wouldn’t be so hard to deal with. He pouts to himself as he mixes some cool grey into his blue paint. Bluh. Whatever. He can’t unstart now. He’ll just have to suffer until he isn’t anymore.

For now, he squints out at the horizon in front of him. He’s at the west side of the lake to paint today, less to get a new landscape and more just because he doesn’t want to be staring at the sun for half an hour. He’s fine with letting it just warm him from behind and make his back all sweaty. When it gets low enough he thinks he’ll be in the right position to paint his shadow long and tall over the glowing lake.

Dipping his brush into his dark green to get started, he tiredly smudges in the outline of the bushes. There. Yes. Good start. The sun might be melting him in place but all he has to do is take it one little step at a time. A big ass dragonfly flutters over the lake and over to him and after he finishes flinching away from it, he adds the tiniest golden dot on his canvas to remind himself to paint it in over the water later.

He thinks, as this painting comes along, that he’s going to add it to his “fauvism” section on his website. That section is where he puts all of the paintings he was way too tired to focus properly on and became way messier and simpler than usual. He charges an extra twelve dollars because technically it’s a different style than the rest of his stuff and no one else needs to know that he only did it on accident. If rich people want to think they’re paying extra for more of his time and effort then that’s fine by him. He’s pretty fond of the way his sleepy hand favors swooping circles and gentle swirls either way. It’s like the whole painting is made of clouds.

The sun creeps down low behind him, pulling his shadow out longer and longer over the lake. He paints in the general outline when it gets about a quarter of the way across, then goes back to focusing on the sky. He’s used to a light blue to bright orange gradient from facing the sun, but this way, he’s working with pretty much straight up blue and the smallest pink tint in the clouds. He doesn’t want to fuck it up. He’ll figure out what length he wants the shadow to be when he’s done. Maybe just tall enough that the shadows of the trees behind him peep up into the lake’s reflection as well. That would be cool.

Condensation from his thermos drips down his hand when he picks it up and he grimaces before sleepily taking another sip. He scans the outline of the lake as he does, noting the sandy shore, the pebbly areas, the bigger rocks that are just starting to creep out of the receding water level. Soon he’s gonna clamber his way up to the island in the middle. Another few weeks. He can feel it. Looking up the rest of the shore, he takes another drink of water, then holds it in his mouth and scrunches his nose as he fights back a yawn.

Then he almost chokes and coughs it all up over his painting as he catches sight of a bushy brown tail and white tufted ears.

He opens his mouth and lets the water kind of just dribble grossly onto the ground in front of him, shakes his head, wipes his lips with his arm, and quickly looks back up to find the wolf again. Thankfully, they’re still there, standing at the edge of the water on the other side of the lake, leaning down to take a drink in the setting sunlight.

“Holy shit,” Taemin whispers. Heck. Holy heckers. That is a real life wolf, right there in front of him, big and ruffly and fucking rad as hell. He scrambles to mix some of his paints together to form some form of brown, suddenly much more awake than he was a minute ago. “Heck fuck heck,” he whispers to himself. What color even--he looks up again, glances up and down and up and down, trying to make that perfect sunset-glow-touched-dust shade of brown. He needs this wolf in his painting more than anything he’s ever needed in his life.

After much scrambling and a sharp hiss when he accidentally smudges blue all over his pinky, he’s got a pretty good color mixed up and he glances across the lake again. The wolf is still there, drinking from the lake, but as Taemin tries to really study them, they look up. First around them at the forest, and then they scan the lake shore, and then they come to a pause, looking right at Taemin. Taemin stares back blankly, brush hovering in front of his canvas. Heck. He didn’t mean for them to notice him. He lifts his free hand up in a friendly little wave.

The wolf yawns, looks behind them at the trees, looks back at Taemin, and then turns and trots off, fluffy fur bouncing with each step. Taemin gasps softly and reaches out desperately.

“No no no, fuck, come back,” he whines, but before he even finishes they've disappeared into the bushes. “Mmmmgh,” he groans, letting his hand fall and pouting at the ground. Fuck. God damn it. Ugh.

He can’t paint them now. Even if he did know how to paint wolf anatomy without looking directly at one the whole time, it wouldn’t be right. He should have just blobbed the wolf onto the canvas immediately instead of staring at them for so long. Bluh. He pouts at his brush, at the clumsy swirl of color on his pallet, and then dips it into his rinse water to clean it off.

He’s more disappointed that they didn’t seem to want to stay, to be honest. He’s sure that they had important wolf business to do in the woods, but, like, still. They could’ve waved back or something.

He sighs as he continues to just paint a regular sunset, shapes and lines even less defined than before. He wonders if that was the same wolf that escorted him home the other month. He doesn’t see why it wouldn’t be; Jonghyun said there was only really one that came his far south. “Dark brownish grey, with white fluffs on his tail and ears,” Jonghyun said, yeah. That was totally that one wolf.

Taemin hopes he likes him.

When he finishes his painting, he packs up slowly and waits around for a while to see if he’ll come back. It’s a long shot, but he believes in his hope. Maybe he’s curious about him or maybe he just wants more water. Or something. Maybe.

He waits for another twenty minutes before sadly deciding to pack up and go home before he gets stuck in darkness again. Oh well. It was pretty cool to see him in the moment, at least. It’s just too bad that it’ll probably never happen again.

~

The next day, it happens again. He’s sitting at the lake again, a little to the right of where he was yesterday because at this angle he can just see one tree peeping out from behind two other ones and it’s pretty cute, and is yawning into his hand as he scans the lake to get a feel for the colors. He’s out a little earlier this time to get a brighter, yellower sunset. Partly it’s to give his gallery some diversity, but mostly it’s because it’s Thursday and his tacky judge shows come on during the end of the sunset on Thursdays. He can’t keep skipping those. He needs his over the top drama filled legal proceedings in his life.

As he looks out over the water, his eyes land on a furry greyish brown poof on the opposite shore, white-tufted head bent down to drink from the water. Oh. Hmm.

“Holy shit,” he says, and pokes around his paints with much less intensity than yesterday to rustle up some wolf color. He doesn’t know why he get himself so hecked up over it before. Probably the whole dead tired thing messing with his brain.

For now, he mixes together some orange and some purple and a little bit of red and dips his brush into the new brown. There. Yeah. Nice. Chill. No rush, no hurry. Just a dude mixing some paint in the woods.

Well, okay, yeah, maybe he’s in a little bit of a hurry. Like, holy shit. Two days in a row. What a fucking blessing. He glances up quickly and bites his smile when the wolf is still there. Nice. Carefully, he paints in the general shape of the wolf. Looking up again, he does his best to get his bushy tail looking nice and soft and graceful. He grimaces when he paints his neck and head down at the water--that anatomy is fucking awful--but he is proud of the jaunty little angles he gives his ears. That’s some cute shit.

The brown he mixed up is a nice color; not exactly the color of the wolf, but a warmer sunnier look that blends with the rest of the scene he’s laid out. Once he’s got in the basics he looks back up to figure out where exactly his white parts are.

He’s greeted with a whole lot of nothing. He gasps softly, in confusion, and pouts as he squints across the lake. Shit. Fuck. How did he not notice him leaving. How did he leave so  _fast--_

“Oh,” he says when he catches the flick of a white tufted tail disappearing into the trees a little to the left of where the wolf was drinking from. Oh. Well. Hmm.

He paints the tip of his tail white and leaves the rest of him alone. He can think back and try to remember more about him when he finishes the rest. He’s pretty sure his ears are white too but the anxiety gremlin in his brain won’t let him commit to painting that.

Either way, he smiles to himself as he continues his painting. Every time he glances at his tiny wolf he feels all fuzzy inside. He loves it. It’s special and rare and meaningful to him in ways that he can’t really explain. A secret little puppy. He might keep this painting for himself, honestly, instead of selling it, even though he knows people would pay more for one with a cool wolf in it.

As he’s rinsing the dark brown of a tree trunk off of his brush, he hears soft rustling from the trees to his right. Like, less soft soft rustling than usual, he means. More than just a random bun hopping their way into a bush. It’s also a vaguely familiar noise. He pauses, turning around to squint into the trees behind the path around the lake. There, one foot halfway crept out of a bush, is the wolf, staring back at him with what is unmistakably a look of guilt at being caught.

Taemin stares back blankly, noting his droopy ears, slightly raised hackles, the way he points his little sniffer down and slowly lowers his leg. That is a suspicious little pup if he ever saw one.

That is also an extremely cool wolf, like six feet away in plain sight. Holy heck. He fingers the hem of his shirt nervously, not entirely sure how to sound cool and interesting.

“Were you trying to sneak up on me?” is what his mouth says for him. The wolf looks away guiltily and Taemin doesn’t even take a moment to kick himself for that shitty introduction because that was just. Really cute. He smothers a grin in his hand and turns a little more on his little art stool. “Wanna come see my painting?” he asks. “You’re in it.”

At that, the wolf perks up curiously. His floofy tail swishes behind him as he steps out of the trees and across the path without creeping this time. Taemin feels like he should be marvelling at his soft coat, his deep brown eyes, his cute paws, but the only thing that takes up the front of his mind as he comes nearer is--

“God, you’re so  _big,_  what the fuck,” he breathes. The wolf pauses in his walking to stop and just look at Taemin. Taemin is sure that if he had eyebrows he would have just risen and looks away sheepishly. “Sorry, just,” he mumbles, looking back. “You are.” He’s almost three feet tall at the shoulder, Taemin thinks, and from his sitting position on his low stool that only puts him at a little bit above eye level. It’s wild how big he is. He never knew wolves were this large. He thought they were just, like. Dogs but fluffier.

The wolf bumps his side purposefully with his shoulder before he sits down next to him and looks at his painting. Taemin grumbles halfheartedly as he rubs his side.

“Mean,” he pouts. Then he turns back to his painting. “That’s you,” he says, pointing at the little fuzzy wolf he painted just a few minutes ago. It’s just as cute as he remembers, from its white tipped tail to its--“Ooh, wait,” Taemin says, and dips his brush into his white paint. “Look at me, really quick?” he asks the wolf, reaching out to gently touch his cheek. He turns, lick Taemin’s fingers all slobbery, and peers up at him with smug brown eyes as he scrunches his nose and wipes his hand on his pants. “Thanks,” he grumbles. Lifting his hand higher, he hovers his fingers over his ears without touching to find exactly where his white bits are. Then he turns to his painting and adds the details his tiny wolf.

“There,” he smiles when he’s done. “ _Now_  it’s you.”

The wolf’s tail brushes leaves from the ground as he scoots a few steps forward to look at the mini wolf closer, mouth wide in a lazy puppy smile. Taemin grins, proud that he’s so happy about it. He rinses his brush again and goes back to painting the sky. The wolf sits quietly, just watching him, a big floofy presence next to him that feels surprisingly comfortable. He likes him already.

“You’re the one that escorted me home that one time, right?” he asks after a few minutes of silence. He stays focused on his painting as he speaks. The wolf gives him two lazy, slightly sarcastic whuffs in reply and he grins. Okay, good, he was right. “Thanks, for that,” he says. “Probably would’ve had a panic attack or something if you weren’t there.” He adds a little orange to the reflection of the sun in his lake, then pauses. “Why were you there, by the way?” he asks, glancing down. The wolf glances up, head resting on his crossed paws, shrugs his shoulders, and looks back at his canvas. Taemin snorts. Alright then. He guesses if he was a wolf and he saw some dude passed out alone in the woods in the middle of the night he would be curious too.

“You know, Jonghyun told me about you, I think,” he says as he rinses his brush off. He leans forward, scrapes a little paint off of the edge of the canvas with his nail, rubs it on his pants, and squishes his brush around in the green. “He told me one of you liked to come snooping around this side of the lake sometimes.” He’s assuming that wolf this is that one and there aren’t multiple people watchers in the pack. He opens his mouth to say something else, but then realizes that he really doesn’t have anything else to say. That was… that was it. Jonghyun told him about the wolf and now here he is. He bites his lip as he paints and tries to not blush.

“You’re, um,” he says after he fails at that. “A pretty cute pup.” That’s good, right? Compliments are good.

Totally good, if the pleased little wolf noise he gets is any indicator. Taemin smiles, proud of himself. Nice. Yeah. He’s not fucking this up at all.

He still stays silent for the rest of the time it takes him to finish his painting, though. If he doesn’t have anything to say then he doesn’t want to force conversation, especially with someone that is very likely to only give him amused, smug little looks in reply. He wants to be able to just chill in silence with a new pal.

It helps if he thinks of the wolf as Jonghyun, honestly. Jonghyun has sat quietly next to him a few times while he painted since that first time and it was always nice with him. Jonghyun doesn’t mind if he doesn’t fill every possible moment with chatter. He can pretend that this wolf is the same. He don’t seem to object, anyway.

His silence is comfortable, easy to appreciate. Taemin finds himself breathing easily as he paints. He's not even feeling a little anxious. This is nice. The sun lowers slowly behind him, warms the back of his neck and glows everything up a nice orange color. By the time he’s adding his finishing strokes of color to his canvas it’s just starting to sink down below the trees. He bites his smile, licks his lips, puffs them up as he pulls his brush back. Hmm. Looks good, he thinks. A nice little lake scene.

“What do you think?” he murmurs, glancing down at where the wolf has been lazily resting his eyes. He peeps them open at Taemin’s question, stands up fully and shakes out his fur as he yawns wide. Then he growls low in his throat in a way that sounds like a contemplative hum, dark eyes looking from Taemin’s painting to the lake. After a moment, he shuffles forward and lifts a big paw. He hovers it over one of the background trees and wiggles it for a moment before lowering it. Taemin looks at the tree. Hmm. He has no idea what that wiggly thing meant.

“Taller?” he asks, frowning questioningly at the wolf. He shakes his head, soft fur shifting from side to side. “Wider,” Taemin tries next, squinting at the real tree on the horizon. At that the wolf nods eagerly with a gentle bark. Taemin hums quietly. Alright then. He lifts his brush again to fix the tree the way the wolf wants him to. When he’s done he pulls back again and offers the wolf a curious hum. They hum back in approval, tapping the ground with excited little feeties. Taemin grins as he gets his tiny brush to sign his name.

“Alright, thanks, friend,” he says. He rinses his brushes and cleans off his palette, he wolf patiently watching him the whole time. Taemin raises his brows as he pushes all of his things back into his bag. “What?” he asks. He feels like they should have left by now if all they wanted was to watch him paint. “Are you gonna escort me back home again?” He chuckles, but they nod, nose held up all high and important.

“Oh,” Taemin says, blinking. He’s a little taken aback at that, but, he means, alright then. He doesn’t see why not. It’s kind of flattering that he likes him this much. He’s glad that the impression he’s made is a good one.

He gets his bag all packed with his easel and painting strapped to the back, then folds up his stool and holds it under his arm. The last thing he has to carry is his soft comfy pillow, but before he can pick it up, the wolf gently takes a corner tassel in his mouth and picks it up for him. Taemin raises his brows at him again.

“Yeah?” he asks. That seems like an incredibly unhelpful way to be helpful. The wolf just smiles lazily, soft tail swishing from side to side, pillow dangling by one corner. Taemin rolls his eyes as he shrugs. Sure, yeah, fine. He can help. The wolf jerks his head towards the path in a way that seems to say “let’s go then”, so Taemin follows, amused at his jaunty little trot. He’s a good pup.

The walk back is predictably silent but predictably comfortable, Taemin checking his phone every now and again while the wolf looks around at all of the little forest critters scuttling through the trees. At one point, the wolf slows a little to follow behind Taemin and peer up at his painting on his backpack.

“You can buy it if you want,” Taemin says over his shoulder. “I’ll give you a discount ‘cause you’re in it and everything.” He feels like that’s fair. A model shouldn’t have to pay full price for the work they were in. The wolf huffs out an amused little noise as he falls back into step next to Taemin. He bumps Taemin’s thigh with his shoulder as he does so. Taemin sways exaggeratedly to the side, pretending to stumble and smirking when the wolf rolls his eyes. Taemin really likes this wolf, honestly. He’s easy to get along with.

When they reach his house, Taemin smiles softly to himself as he shuffles his feet over the dirt road, lightly kicking up dust. He loves the familiar poofs under his feet that mean he’s finally home.

The wolf huffs though, shaking his head as the dust poofs in his face and then shooting him a glare with the tiniest growl. Taemin smothers a laugh behind his hand. Whoops.

“My bad,” he says, reaching down to gently pap his head and fluff dust from his fur. The wolf grumbles and baps Taemin’s leg with the pillow. “Oh,” Taemin says. The wolf didn’t mean to but that reminded Taemin that he needs that back. He absently reaches to tug the pillow from his mouth as he digs in his pocket for his keys. “Thanks,” he mumbles as he walks up his porch steps and fits it snug under his arm.

As he jams his key into the lock, the wolf climbs daintily up the steps behind him and wipes his paws cleanish on the welcome mat. Taemin raises his brows at him, pushing the door open then putting his hands on his hips.

“What, you wanna come inside?” he asks, frowning. That seems a little much, but the wolf still nods eagerly, making pouty noises as he blinks big brown puppy eyes. Not fair. “I only just met you,” Taemin says. The wolf whines more, papping his little feeties on the ground, wiggling his whole body. “Oh my god,” Taemin whispers. “That’s so cute.” What the fuck. That is extremely unfair. He’s so…. fluffy.

“Fine, fine,” Taemin says, pushing the door open wider and slipping inside first. “But only for a few minutes,” he adds as the wolf happily follows him, pausing to wipe his back paws on the welcome mat as well. At least he’s polite. “I’m sleepy,” he says, giving him a pout of his own.

The wolf ignores him, seemingly already invested in exploring Taemin’s little front area.

Or… sniffing, Taemin guesses. Searching? He puffs his lips up, confused, as the wolf snuffles over to his spare front table chair, then sniffs the air and walks across the room. Taemin watches as he follows his nose to him, peers down as he nudges at his feet, and steps aside to let him pass. He keeps going, sniffing his way all the way to Taemin’s coat rack in the corner. There, he noses through all of Taemin’s jackets and hoodies.

“Hey,” Taemin frowns. “Rude.” He walks over to find him gently biting the sleeve of one jacket and tugging. What. “What?” Taemin asks, lifting the two jackets on top of it away. “What do--hey!” He grabs for the jacket as the wolf lifts up and tugs it off of the hook, but he’s not fast enough and he scuttles away out of his reach. What the fuck. He didn’t invite this wolf in just so he could steal his stuff.

“Give that back,” he whines, stepping forward. “It’s Jong--”

He pauses mid-word, pauses and just stares at the wolf as he pulls the jacket to hang over his back with the smuggest little puppy smile. When the wolf looks back at him, those dark brown eyes seem suddenly familiar in a way that Taemin doesn’t believe he didn’t notice before.

“You little shit,” he says in disbelief. “I knew it.” Jonghyun winks at him--he actually winks, the smug asshole--barks softly once, turns, and leaves Taemin’s house, soft paws rustling the leaves on the ground as he pads through the trees.

~

The jacket is snug over Jonghyun’s shoulders when he opens his front door to greet Taemin the next morning.

“Hey,” he grins, one eyebrow cocked as Taemin crosses his arms accusingly.

“You’re a little shit,” Taemin tells him again, in case he didn’t get the message last night. His words are grumpy but he can’t keep the smile off of his face either. Jonghyun grins even wider and steps back to let him in, house warm and smelling of bacon.

“Thanks,” he says, voice a familiar raspy rumble. Taemin snorts and shakes his head as he steps inside and leaves his shoes by the door. “I’m making pancakes,” Jonghyun tells him as he leans against the door to close it. “Want some?”

“Uh,” Taemin says. He shrugs, slipping his backpack off of his shoulder as well and tossing it onto Jonghyun’s couch. “Maybe a little one. I already ate before I walked over.” He’s all full up on breakfast cereal. He felt like he had to be all energized to have whatever conversation they’re going to get around to having. Jonghyun nods, waves an inviting hand to the rest of his house as he always does when he means for Taemin to take a seat, and heads back into his kitchen.

Taemin follows him, hands in his pockets, and watches as he pokes at some pancakes on the stove. He’s quiet at first, wanting to let Jonghyun concentrate on his cooking, but Jonghyun keeps giving him these little  _looks_  with the tiniest smirks and eventually he huffs. It turns into a chuckle, a breathy laugh, when Jonghyun glances at him with those deep brown eyes of his.

“God, your eyes are exactly the same, I don’t know how I didn’t recognize you immediately,” he mutters. He leans his elbow on the counter and props his chin in his hand, shaking his head at his own self. Jonghyun giggles as he flips his pancakes.

“Did you really know it when you said you knew it?” he asks. He slips his hand under a paper towel on the counter, pulls out a crispy piece of bacon, breaks it in half, and offers Taemin one. Taemin shakes his head as he takes it.

“Not really,” he says, “just, a lot of little things that I never thought to connect suddenly made sense.” He shrugs. “I thought about it a lot in bed last night.” The going out in the forest to connect with his inner nature… hunting and shit… how he always seemed clumsy on his own two feet each time he returned… that time he said he worked on his singing and songwriting out there…. “Your voice,” Taemin says, adding another thing on his checklist out loud.

“Hmm?” Jonghyun asks, glancing at Taemin as he takes his pancakes out of the pan. Taemin watches as he puts more butter into the pan, picks up a measuring cup full of batter, and pours in a few tiny, bite-sized pancakes next to another regular sized one. Taemin gestures vaguely at his throat.

“Whenever you came back from the forest your voice was always a little rough,” he says. “I figured it was just hoarse from lack of use, but.” He shrugs to mean that now he knows better.

“Oh,” Jonghyun says, and as if to prove Taemin’s point, his voice catches in his throat and he coughs. Taemin gives him his own little smirk as he clears his throat and takes a sip of water from the sink. “Okay, well,” he says once he turns back to his pancakes. “Good,” he mumbles. He carefully flips the little ones before biting his lip and fluffing the hair at the back of his head. He hesitates for a moment, then turns to look at Taemin with a worried little pout.

“Because it’s kinda like the queer thing, you know?” he says. “Someone telling you they already knew when you come out to them isn’t exactly, uh, reassuring. I know this is a good town for shapeshifters and all, but. You know.”

“Mmhmm,” Taemin hums knowingly. He understands that fear. “I wasn’t trying to say, like, you were obvious, or anything,” he says. “Just, now that you’ve told me, it makes sense.” He shrugs and leaves it at that. There’s not really much else to say. Jonghyun nods back, chewing on his bottom lip as he gently pokes little bubbles in the center of the big pancake. He flips that after another moment, then hisses and curses under his breath when he accidentally flips it half on top of one of the little ones. Taemin smothers a grin in his hand as Jonghyun pouts and flips the little one back over to cook off the raw batter.

He watches in silence for another minute or so, letting Jonghyun get a small plate and slide the tiny pancakes onto it. He points vaguely to the syrup bottle on the counter behind Taemin, but Taemin just takes his butter knife and spreads more onto one before popping it into his mouth.

“Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me, by the way,” he adds then. Jonghyun glances at him in the middle of pouring out a new big pancake and he does his best to make a little reassuring smile show up on his face. He feels all soft and gay inside that Jonghyun thinks he’s close enough to be trusted with this. Jonghyun’s lips curve up too, but into more of a smirk.

“Remember the first day we met,” he says, looking back to the pan. “And I told you I shifted from a lone wolf to a social butterfly, and you thought I was being metaphorical--”

“Oh my  _fucking_  god,” Taemin hisses. He shakes his head, puts his face in his hands, sighs loudly and walks away from Jonghyun’s smug victorious laughter. God. He literally told him the first day. What the fuck. His family still thinks he’s joking when Taemin tells them he’s as straight as a slinky and even he can’t compete with that level of sarcastically honest signaling. It’s honestly impressive.

He walks back to Jonghyun, but only to grab his little plate of little pancakes and shake his head when Jonghyun throws him another toothy grin and wiggles his eyebrows. He takes them to the couch and squishes himself in the corner, pulling one of Jonghyun’s spare blankies over his legs. God. He’s so. Amused and yet also exasperated by everything, including himself.

He eats his little pancakes in silence, stopping every few munches to run his fingers through his hair or turn a breathy laugh into his shoulder at every other little thing he remembers. Eventually, Jonghyun finishes in the kitchen and scoots around his counter to come join him.

“I was still kinda being metaphorical, actually,” Jonghyun tells him when he sits himself down on the couch.

“Hmm?” Taemin asks. He started to kind of zone out after a while and blinks slowly to get back into focus. Jonghyun wiggles under the blankie with him and holds his plate of big syrupy pancakes in his lap. Taemin absently puts the last two little pancakes he was too full to eat in the center of Jonghyun’s stack.

“When I told you I shifted from a lone wolf to a social butterfly,” Jonghyun repeats.

“Oh,” Taemin says, a breathy chuckle of a word. He leans his head back to grin at Jonghyun’s ceiling for a moment before lolling it back down to rest on the pillows lining the back of the couch. “How so?” he asks.

“When I go out into the woods it’s to be social with the rest of the pack,” Jonghyun says. “When I’m back here I’m the lone wolf.”

“Oh,” Taemin says again, and rests his cheek in his hand with an amused little smile. That makes sense, yeah. He watches Jonghyun’s plate as he cuts himself little triangles of pancake to eat. “How come you didn’t pose for my painting?” he asks blandly. “Wolf anatomy is hard.” He almost makes the effort to pout, but when Jonghyun glances up at him his face decides to still just smile lazily back. Jonghyun grins, shrugs, looks back to his breakfast.

“I’m a little camera shy,” he says. Taemin laughs softly and shakes his head.

“Of course,” he replies. His pocket vibrates then, so he takes it out and hums shortly when it turns out to be a text from Kibum. Shifting so he can lean his head comfortably on Jonghyun’s shoulder, he pulls the blankie up higher and texts his friend back. Then he checks his other messages, his timelines and dashboards and subscriptions, and then his games. Jonghyun peeps at his screen while he bites his lip at a scramble game and reaches over to gently poke out a good word. Taemin hums a soft “thanks” and angles the phone further towards him so he can help more.

It’s a nice morning that they spend together like that, not really talking, just chilling. Jonghyun finishes his breakfast and clicks his tv on to some morning cartoons. Taemin adds a little puppy emoji next to Jonghyun’s name in his phone, then quickly hides it and his blush when Jonghyun notices and snorts.

Apart from that, Taemin barely even feels anxious once he gets all settled into the moment. It’s like he skipped over that part of the interaction entirely when he came inside. He thinks he should start more conversations out with a clear opening line. Maybe one less insulting than “you’re a little shit,” though. He’ll work on it.

Eventually, as Taemin is yawning and curling his hands around Jonghyun’s bicep to nuzzle and hold close for comfort, Jonghyun nudges him gently to get his attention. Taemin grumbles, squeezing his arm. He was trying to be cute and snuggly and doze off for    a few minutes. Jonghyun pokes his cheek gently and wiggles his finger insistently, so Taemin sighs and opens his eyes to look up at him. He can doze off later.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Can I buy that painting?” Jonghyun asks.

That Taemin actually sits up for--halfway, at least. He rubs sleepiness from his eyes and pushes himself into a position where he can actually look at Jonghyun at eye level.

“Really?” he asks. Jonghyun nods eagerly.

“Yeah,” he says. “I wanna take it and show it to the fam and hang it up over there.” He taps his clenched little fists on his thighs eagerly and Taemin snorts. Of course. Of course he wants to show his wolf pals the painting he was in.

“That’s cute,” Taemin hums. He smothers a yawn into his hand, then nods with a little shrug. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “I gotta varnish and frame it, but I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

“Nice,” Jonghyun hisses. His little hands tap faster on his legs, socked feet papping his floors, and Taemin can’t fight the endearment in his chest. He’s just always cute and wiggly. “Hey, so I get a double discount, right?” Jonghyun asks then, and all of Taemin’s fondness is replaced by an ugly snort. Fuck. He raises his brows at Jonghyun, who cocks one back. “Because I was a model and also because I’m such a good neighbor?” he says. He wiggles his brows, but something in the way he smiles tells Taemin that he’s just kidding. Good.

“I’ll knock off the shipping price,” Taemin tells him. Jonghyun immediately takes his hand and shakes it like he just made the deal of the century. Taemin clings to it when he lets go, pulling it around his shoulders so he can lean comfortably on Jonghyun’s side.

Maybe he’ll knock off an extra five dollars too just for Jonghyun’s status as a good neighbor. When he first moved in a year ago Taemin was honestly ready to say hi to Jonghyun once and then never speak to him again. He thinks he deserves a little discount for actually becoming a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #in a surprise twist that was surprising to Approximately No One... jong was the wolf lmao  
> #he likes being a wolf but he also likes talking to ppl sometimes and going out to breakfast and seeing movies and whatnot  
> #and the Internet  
> #the wolves in the forest own his house and whenever a pack member wants to just chill as a human for a while thats where they go  
> #they have lil houses and electricity nd whatnot out in the forest but its Different (tm)  
> #also jong goes a lot in the spring to play with the pups  
> #anyway jonghyun buys the painting and takes it to the fam and hangs it up and is v uwu about it  
> #and when he comes back to the house he chills with taem and is his friend and thats also good  
> #and taem chills and relaxes and has a nice life and thats Very good  
> #its my dads birthday today

**Author's Note:**

> #listen this au is Important its like 60% taem being a cute sunset painted 40% jong being a cute camping neighbor and 10% wolves  
> #taem just ???? doesnt like people and does like plants so hes set up with the Dream


End file.
